Mimi has been flooding our facebook with visual illusions for some time now. It's time to redmind ourselves that vision is not the only sense we have and certainly not the only one that can get fooled.
Let's start with some basics; if you have never heard of the Rubber Hand Illusion (or worse, you have, but you never got around to check it out), you know nothing Jon Snow and you should at least watch this video. Now.
moar sciency here: Botvinick, Matthew, and Jonathan Cohen. "Rubber hands' feel'touch that eyes see." Nature 391.6669 (1998): 756-756. (very readable and informative)
This illusion is closely related to the Mirror Box illusion, which you may know from the TV show House. Mirror box has been succesfully used to treat chronic pain in phantom limbs by generating a illusory visal perception of the missing limb. It's all (and more) very well explained in this TED talk by its inventor Vilayanur S. Ramachandran, a famous neuroscientist also known for his works on mirror neurons:
In the local news, bright young scientists from our very own LEVYNA are currently doing research on the effect of meditation on body scheme using a modified version of rubber hand experiment. Stay tuned for the results!
Saturday, November 24, 2012
Saturday, September 29, 2012
Conference on Experimental Study of Religion
What: "Homo Experimentalis: Experimental Approaches in the Study of Religion"
Where: Masaryk University, Brno
When: 25.10.-27.10
PROGRAM
The new Laboratory for Experimental Research of Religion (aka LEVYNA) in Brno throws its first conference. It's free, however, registration is required. Hurry up, only two more days left to register!
For more info go to LEVYNA's webpage.
Where: Masaryk University, Brno
When: 25.10.-27.10
PROGRAM
The new Laboratory for Experimental Research of Religion (aka LEVYNA) in Brno throws its first conference. It's free, however, registration is required. Hurry up, only two more days left to register!
For more info go to LEVYNA's webpage.
Sunday, August 19, 2012
(Artistic) renderings of the brain
Can neuroscience be artistic?
Carl Schoonover ( a very schön young scientist, for a proof see a photo ) is a very accomplished young scientist who earned his degree at Columbia University. What makes him very interesting, beside his schönhood, is also his unique PHD project later on transformed into a book titled Portraits of the Mind: Visualizing the Brain from Antiquity to the 21st Century. The book offers an amazing journey to visual brain renderings. It encompasses brain images of great diversity, dating back to medieval times, through 19th century drawings. The first two chapters are dedicated to biologists studying the neural system, such as Galen, Golgi or Ramon y Cajal. Later chapters are focused on more current versions of the brain study.
Some of the images are displayed below. Enjoy!
The book cover.
Early drawings of visual pathways. 11th century.
Cortical blood vessels.
Image of rat' s hipocampus.
Carl Schoonover ( a very schön young scientist, for a proof see a photo ) is a very accomplished young scientist who earned his degree at Columbia University. What makes him very interesting, beside his schönhood, is also his unique PHD project later on transformed into a book titled Portraits of the Mind: Visualizing the Brain from Antiquity to the 21st Century. The book offers an amazing journey to visual brain renderings. It encompasses brain images of great diversity, dating back to medieval times, through 19th century drawings. The first two chapters are dedicated to biologists studying the neural system, such as Galen, Golgi or Ramon y Cajal. Later chapters are focused on more current versions of the brain study.
Some of the images are displayed below. Enjoy!
Image of rat' s hipocampus.
Friday, July 20, 2012
The art of metaphors
Each of us remembers being a little kid, lying under the warm comforter, full of expectation, followed by awe as your parent reads a passage from your favorite book .Stories are important is our life, not only because they reflect of how we feel, how we live or how we want to live, but because they bring us to a new reality, the unexperienced one.
Current research is showing evidence of what happens inside of our brain when reading a story, encountering an emotional exchange between story characters or when reading a metaphor. Much of language processing occurs in two essential language-related center: Broca and Wernicke area. However, reading words related to sense also activates respective brain area. When reading a word "rose" or " vinegar", areas connected to smells, i.e., primary olfactory areas, are activated.
In a research published in Brain and Language, researchers were interested what brain regions are involved in processing of metaphors. Having a rough day; a singer having a velvet voice....All those metaphors activate also primary somatosensory areas responsive to texture processing. Interestingly, visual areas were not stimulated showing evidence for primacy of touch in texture perception.
The research demonstrates how our brain constructs an internal simulation when processing metaphors. Authors of the study concludes by saying:
" This also demonstrates how complex processes involving symbols, such as appreciating a painting or understanding a metaphor, do not depend just on evolutionarily new parts of the brain, but also on adaptations of older parts of the brain."
Current research is showing evidence of what happens inside of our brain when reading a story, encountering an emotional exchange between story characters or when reading a metaphor. Much of language processing occurs in two essential language-related center: Broca and Wernicke area. However, reading words related to sense also activates respective brain area. When reading a word "rose" or " vinegar", areas connected to smells, i.e., primary olfactory areas, are activated.
In a research published in Brain and Language, researchers were interested what brain regions are involved in processing of metaphors. Having a rough day; a singer having a velvet voice....All those metaphors activate also primary somatosensory areas responsive to texture processing. Interestingly, visual areas were not stimulated showing evidence for primacy of touch in texture perception.
The research demonstrates how our brain constructs an internal simulation when processing metaphors. Authors of the study concludes by saying:
" This also demonstrates how complex processes involving symbols, such as appreciating a painting or understanding a metaphor, do not depend just on evolutionarily new parts of the brain, but also on adaptations of older parts of the brain."
Monday, June 18, 2012
The impossibility of unlearning: Deep down, we still believe the Sun revolves around the Earth
Maybe some of you remember believing it's Sun revolving around the Earth. The Sun is so small in the sky and we can't feel any rotation, can we? This kind of theory that people naturally hold without scientific education and cultural influence is called the naive theory. Later we came to school, learned that it's actually the other way around, our old theory got replaced and we can laugh at stupid Americans till the end of our days.
At least that's what our naive theory of learning predicts. However, it seems science will once again teach us otherwise. Recent study says it seems the naive childhood beliefs aren't replaced by new scientific facts but merely suppressed.
Tuesday, June 12, 2012
meditation modulates usage of attentional resources
Assuming that many readers are college students, going through various strenuous activities, studying for exams and running around like chickens without heads when writing their papers, this article is aimed at helping you improve your attentional span.
A recent study (and many other before) suggests that meditation might improve at attentional span or capacity, defined by the number of items one can hold and manipulate with in their working memory. In the study of Slagter et al. (2007), participants had to perform attentional blind paradigm. In the paradigm, items are presented very quickly in succession and subjects are supposed to identify two white letters among black letters. When the letters are in a close temporal proximity from each other, the percentage of identification of the second letter decreases. See the video with only red letters.
The reason why this phenomenon called attentional blink occurs is the limited attentional resources we have when allocating our attention. Thus, identification of the first letter exerts the attention that needs to be restored and when that does not happen, attention "blinks".
In the study, subject who performed intensive three-months long meditation were far better at identifying the second letter and not experiencing attentional blink then control subjects. Thus, meditation helps the training of attention via the mechanisms of selecting and concentrating on task-relevant goal and exerting less of attentional resources for particular attention-demanding task.
A recent study (and many other before) suggests that meditation might improve at attentional span or capacity, defined by the number of items one can hold and manipulate with in their working memory. In the study of Slagter et al. (2007), participants had to perform attentional blind paradigm. In the paradigm, items are presented very quickly in succession and subjects are supposed to identify two white letters among black letters. When the letters are in a close temporal proximity from each other, the percentage of identification of the second letter decreases. See the video with only red letters.
The reason why this phenomenon called attentional blink occurs is the limited attentional resources we have when allocating our attention. Thus, identification of the first letter exerts the attention that needs to be restored and when that does not happen, attention "blinks".
In the study, subject who performed intensive three-months long meditation were far better at identifying the second letter and not experiencing attentional blink then control subjects. Thus, meditation helps the training of attention via the mechanisms of selecting and concentrating on task-relevant goal and exerting less of attentional resources for particular attention-demanding task.
Sunday, June 3, 2012
Conference on Consciousness and Volition in Poland.
Consciousness and Volition: 1st International Krakow Conference in Cognitive Science
27-29 September 2012
Institute of Philosophy, Jagiellonian University in cooperation with the Institute of Psychology, Jagiellonian University and AGH University of Science and Technology.
27-29 September 2012
Institute of Philosophy, Jagiellonian University in cooperation with the Institute of Psychology, Jagiellonian University and AGH University of Science and Technology.
Saturday, June 2, 2012
Unexpected events strike believers more than non-believers
The strength of higher level beliefs can be predicted by something as basic- or low-level as attentional capture. Attentional capture is an automatic, involuntary phenomenon when an unattended or very salient (attractive) stimulus literally grabs our attention. Imagine a huge octopus entering a classroom and trying to sneak upon your teacher, regardless of how much you want to pay attention to the lesson, you just cannot resist noticing the octopus. Regardless of the goal-directed (top-down) actions, the attention cannot be helped since the stimulus is so salient (stimulus-driven attention), regardless of its relevance to the task. This is attentional capture.
In a study of Bressan, Kramer & Germani (2008), attentional capture (AC) has been found to be correlated with the beliefs in meaningfulness of coincidence which mediated the relationship between AC and religiosity. Participants saw always pair of two words in white color presented on black background. They had to press a key when a dot appeared on the screen. The meaning of the words and the task (pressing the keyboard when dot appeared) was irrelevant to the nature of the experiment. However, at a specific trial, one of the words was presented in white rectangle (attentional capture). The reaction time to responding to the dot appearing on the screen after this particular, critical trial was a measure of attentional capture (longer RT= greater AC). Participants had to indicate how surprised this event was; they had to judge how surprising and how frequent certain coincidences were, and also filled out religiosity and meaningfulness of coincidences questionnaires.
The experiment demonstrate that believers in meaningfulness of coincidence are more surprised by unexpected events- experience greater attentional capture than non-believers. However, they have a greater tendency to disregard and forget this particular information if it is inconsistent with their beliefs.
Furthermore, beliefs in meaningfulness was correlated (to no surprise) with religiosity.
The results of the current study show that higher order cognition might be modulated/ might modulate low-level information processing.
In a study of Bressan, Kramer & Germani (2008), attentional capture (AC) has been found to be correlated with the beliefs in meaningfulness of coincidence which mediated the relationship between AC and religiosity. Participants saw always pair of two words in white color presented on black background. They had to press a key when a dot appeared on the screen. The meaning of the words and the task (pressing the keyboard when dot appeared) was irrelevant to the nature of the experiment. However, at a specific trial, one of the words was presented in white rectangle (attentional capture). The reaction time to responding to the dot appearing on the screen after this particular, critical trial was a measure of attentional capture (longer RT= greater AC). Participants had to indicate how surprised this event was; they had to judge how surprising and how frequent certain coincidences were, and also filled out religiosity and meaningfulness of coincidences questionnaires.
The experiment demonstrate that believers in meaningfulness of coincidence are more surprised by unexpected events- experience greater attentional capture than non-believers. However, they have a greater tendency to disregard and forget this particular information if it is inconsistent with their beliefs.
Furthermore, beliefs in meaningfulness was correlated (to no surprise) with religiosity.
The results of the current study show that higher order cognition might be modulated/ might modulate low-level information processing.
Friday, June 1, 2012
Free online courses in Neuroscience
Have you already been to coursera.org? Are you already learning at top speed? No? Well, see you later in your dark age.
I picked this cheeky intro to redmind you that summer is not for slacking off and you can start a nice online course on Basic Behavioral Neurology. Some repetition can be useful for our more advanced readers and those of you who are new to cognition and related stuff, why not try to attend University of Pennsylvania for free?
According to their web page, "the course will cover content on basic behavioral neurology, including an overview of cognitive localization in the brain; the neural basis of language processing; executive function and decision-making; how the brain sees; how the brain represents the body, numbers, and space; an introduction to dementia (i.e. when is some forgetfulness too much?); and an introduction to cool tools for studying thinking (fMRI, TMS, tDCS, MEG, EEG)."
Well, see you in the discussion boards of the course. Have fun.
Author: Ján Struhár
If you want your ideas or blog to be published here, contact us though Facebook!
I picked this cheeky intro to redmind you that summer is not for slacking off and you can start a nice online course on Basic Behavioral Neurology. Some repetition can be useful for our more advanced readers and those of you who are new to cognition and related stuff, why not try to attend University of Pennsylvania for free?
According to their web page, "the course will cover content on basic behavioral neurology, including an overview of cognitive localization in the brain; the neural basis of language processing; executive function and decision-making; how the brain sees; how the brain represents the body, numbers, and space; an introduction to dementia (i.e. when is some forgetfulness too much?); and an introduction to cool tools for studying thinking (fMRI, TMS, tDCS, MEG, EEG)."
Well, see you in the discussion boards of the course. Have fun.
Author: Ján Struhár
If you want your ideas or blog to be published here, contact us though Facebook!
Thursday, May 31, 2012
Students' CogSci Conference in Bratislava
This conference is organized by the Middle European Interdisciplinary Master Programme in Cognitive Science (MEi:CogSci). Students of this programme from various Central European universities will present their work and invited speakers will talk about their current research.
When: June 22 – June 23, 2012
Where: Comenius University in Bratislava, Mlynská dolina, Bratislava, Slovak Republic
Website: http://www.univie.ac.at/meicogsci/php/ocs/index.php/meicog/meicog2012/index
When: June 22 – June 23, 2012
Where: Comenius University in Bratislava, Mlynská dolina, Bratislava, Slovak Republic
Website: http://www.univie.ac.at/meicogsci/php/ocs/index.php/meicog/meicog2012/index
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