Science of the SpiritS


Bulb

Have we met before? Scientists show why the brain has the answer


University of Bristol
Thu, 04 Aug 2011 14:52 UTC
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© Unknown
Have you ever been approached by someone whose face you recognize but whose name you can't remember? Neuroscientists at the University of Bristol have identified the reasons behind why we are, at times, unable to link a face to a name.

The research, led by Dr Clea Warburton and Dr Gareth Barker in the University's School of Physiology and Pharmacology and published in the Journal of Neuroscience, has investigated why we can recognise faces much better if we have extra clues as to where or indeed when we encountered them in the first place.

The study found that when we need to remember that a particular object, for example a face, occurred in a particular place, or at a particular time, multiple brain regions have to work together - not independently.

It has been known for some time that three brain regions appear to have specific roles in memory processing. The perirhinal cortex seems to be critical for our ability to recognise whether an individual object is novel or familiar, the hippocampus is important for recognising places and for navigation, while the medial prefrontal cortex is associated with higher brain functions.
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Info

Your Memory Might Not Be As Powerful As You Think

Stephanie Pappas
Live Science
Wed, 03 Aug 2011 16:00 UTC
Memory
© Live Science
A significant number of Americans believe that memory is more powerful, objective and reliable than it actually is, a new survey finds. Some memory myths are so pervasive that up to 83 percent of people believe them.

The survey, published online today (Aug. 3) in the journal PLoS ONE, queried a nationally representative sample of 1,500 Americans about a variety of common beliefs about memory. The survey found that almost two-thirds of Americans believe that memory works like a video camera, accurately recording events for later review.

In fact, study researchers said, scientific data suggests that even confident eyewitnesses to an event are wrong about what happened 30 percent of the time.
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Eye 2

Bridgend, Wales - Behind the eyes of a teenage killer: Joshua Davies shows 'signs of being a psychopath'

Robin Turner
Wales On Sunday
Tue, 02 Aug 2011 04:32 UTC
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Psychopath: 16 year old Joshua Davies
A leading criminologist says teenage killer Joshua Davies may have battered 15-year-old Rebecca Aylward to death because he "did not want to lose face".

And David Wilson, professor of criminology and director of the Centre for Applied Criminology at Birmingham City University, says 16-year-old Davies has shown at least some signs of being a psychopath.

Davies was found guilty at Swansea Crown Court on Wednesday of luring popular "Becca", of Maesteg, to woods near his home in Aberkenfig.

The trial judge Mr Justice Lloyd Jones decided to lift Davies' anonymity as a juvenile because of the seriousness of what he did and because of the "deterrent effect".

For months, Davies launched a verbal and internet hate campaign against his former girlfriend Rebecca.

Comment: It's amazing that some professionals dealing with issues of psychopathy still find it hard to accept that are beings who simply are 'bad seeds' and will reach for any old, stale explanation - usually resorting to blaming environmental factors, such as bad upbringing - to avoid the harsh reality that there are indeed people born without a conscience. It seems to be too horrifying a step for them to take.

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Cult

Best of the Web: Psychopaths: the perfect academic word for US political, economic "leadership"

Carl Herman
Examiner.com
Mon, 01 Aug 2011 16:39 UTC
Ponerology
© SOTT.netThe writing's on the wall
Psychopaths are viciously destructive in action. They obfuscate with lies and charm. They persist only when their actions are unrecognized; 95% of the population reject such criminal destruction (here and here).

US political and economic "leadership" are psychopaths because their central policies are viciously destructive, as the following links explain, document, and prove. "Leadership" obfuscate with lies, charm, and US corporate media complicity.

Calling this behavior psychopathic is perfect because it neither understates nor overstates the facts. Use this academic term at your command. I also suggest Princeton professor Frankfurt's academic term for the type of lies that "leadership" uses: bullshit.
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Eye 2

Best of the Web: The Word is Spreading: The Ruling Psychopaths Among Us

Kamurai Mudzingwa
News Day
Mon, 01 Aug 2011 14:11 UTC
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© Unknown
I always wondered why some people - particularly politicians - are cruel to the extent of committing genocide and wanting to inflict more pain on humanity until a friend introduced me to the term ponerology - a term coined by Polish psychiatrist Andrew Lobaczewski to describe the study of the causes of periods of social injustice.

Ponerology seeks to explain phenomena that include aggressive war, ethnic cleansing, genocide and police states (Wikipedia). Studies in this discipline have shown a tight link between social injustice and psychopathy - the ability to lie, steal, cause great harm or kill with virtually no remorse.

To understand what animal a psychopath is, Lobaczewski in Political Ponerology: A Science of Evil Adjusted for Political Purposes says: "Imagine - if you can - not having a conscience, none at all, no feelings of guilt or remorse no matter what you do, no limiting sense of concern for the well-being of strangers, friends, or even family members.

"Imagine no struggles with shame, not a single one in your whole life, no matter what kind of selfish, lazy, harmful, or immoral action you had taken.

"And pretend that the concept of responsibility is unknown to you, except as a burden others seem to accept without question, like gullible fools.
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Bulb

UK: Rare amnesia leaves mother with 17 year memory gap


The Telegraph
Fri, 29 Jul 2011 03:55 UTC
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© CatersNaomi Jacobs, 32 woke up in 2008 believing she was just 15
A mother-of-one has told of being struck by a rare form of amnesia which left her convinced she was just 15 years old.

Naomi Jacobs, 34, woke up in 2008 but believed she was just about to sit her GCSE exams in the summer of 1992.

The last thing she could remember was falling asleep in her bunk bed as a schoolgirl. She was horrified to learn she was living in the 21st century, and was even mother to an 11-year-old boy she did not recognise.

Doctors revealed that Naomi had been under so much stress that part of her brain had simply closed down, erasing many memories of her life.

She was left baffled by the internet, and flummoxed by her mobile phone as she struggled to get to grips with modern life.

Today, three years after waking up in the future, Naomi has finally regained most of her memory, and has written a book about her experiences.
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Family

Kids' anxiety, depression halved when parenting styled to personality


University of Washington
Mon, 01 Aug 2011 03:43 UTC
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© Unknown
When it comes to rearing children, just about any parent will say that what works with one kid might not work with another. Parents use all sorts of strategies to keep kids from being cranky, grumpy, fearful or moody, while encouraging them to be independent and well-adjusted.

But which parenting styles work best with which kids? A study by University of Washington psychologists provides advice about tailoring parenting to children's personalities.

At the end of the three-year study, the psychologists found that the right match between parenting styles and the child's personality led to half as many depression and anxiety symptoms in school-aged children. But mismatches led to twice as many depression and anxiety symptoms during the same three years.

The study was published online Aug. 1 in the Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology.

"This study moves away from the one-size-fits-all approach to parenting, and gives specific advice to parents on how to mitigate their child's anxiety and depression," said Cara Kiff, lead author and psychology resident at the UW School of Medicine. "We're considering characteristics that make children vulnerable to anxiety and depression, and factoring in how that shapes how kids react to different parenting approaches."

"We hear a lot about over-involved parents, like 'tiger moms' and 'helicopter parents,'" said co-author Liliana Lengua, a UW psychology professor. "It is parents' instinct to help and support their children in some way, but it's not always clear how to intervene in the best way. This research shows that parenting is a balance between stepping in and stepping out with guidance, support and structure based on cues from kids."
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Magic Wand

A Fertile Ground for a Quantum Word Salad so prevalent in the New Age Community: Physicists show that quantum ignorance is hard to expose


Centre for Quantum Technologies at the National University of Singapore
Sun, 31 Jul 2011 15:26 UTC
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© Unknown
The quantum world allows you to answer questions correctly when you don't even have all the information you should need.

No-one likes a know-it-all but we expect to be able to catch them out: someone who acts like they know everything but doesn't can always be tripped up with a well-chosen question. Can't they? Not so. New research in quantum physics has shown that a quantum know-it-all could lack information about a subject as a whole, yet answer almost perfectly any question about the subject's parts. The work is published in Physical Review Letters.

"This is something conceptually very weird," says Stephanie Wehner of the Centre for Quantum Technologies at the National University of Singapore, who derived the theoretical result with PhD student Thomas Vidick at the University of California, Berkeley, United States. It's a new phenomenon to add to the list of philosophical conundrums in quantum physics - as strange as the quantum superposition or the quantum uncertainty principle. But the work also has practical motivation: understanding how information behaves in the quantum context is important in emerging technologies such as quantum cryptography and quantum computation.

To frame the problem, consider the example of someone answering questions about a book they have only half-read. If someone has incomplete knowledge about a book as a whole, one expects to be able to identify the source of their ignorance somewhere in the book's pages.
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Magnify

Does Imagining a Goal Make You Less Likely to Achieve It?

Douglas LaBier
The Huggington Post
Thu, 28 Jul 2011 07:24 UTC
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© Amy Fries
A common theme among self-help teachings and new age spiritual ideas, such as "The Secret," is that you have the power within you to make your "dreams" come true by focusing your mental energy, your "intent," on them. Then, they will come to you. But some new research claims that doing so can actually make you less likely to achieve what you wish for.

The research says that fantasizing about achieving goals makes you less likely to achieve them because it drains the energy you need to pursue them. I think the research is as flawed and distorted as "The Secret" and similar teachings, but for very different reasons. Let's take a look.

This study, from New York University's Motivation Lab, found that "positive fantasies" predict poor achievement because they don't generate the energy to pursue the desired future. That is, if you create idealized images of future outcomes, your fantasized ambitions are less likely to become reality. That's because positive fantasies are de-energizing.

The research contains so many confused ideas and faulty assumptions that it's hard to know where to begin. But it does, indirectly, open a door to understanding some important elements for turning your goals into reality.
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People

'Mirroring' might reflect badly on you: Not always smart to mimic a person's body language


University of California - San Diego
Thu, 28 Jul 2011 13:39 UTC
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© Courtesy Piotr Winkielman, UC San DiegoA person was judged as less competent when mimicking an unfriendly interviewer. When the mimicry was obscured from view, the reputational cost disappeared
Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, but clueless copycatting comes at a cost.

As anyone who has been subjected to the mocking playground game knows, parroting can be annoying. Yet gentle mimicry can act as a kind of "social glue" in human relationships. It fosters rapport and trust. It signals cohesion. Two people who like each other will often unconsciously mirror each other's mannerisms in subtle ways - leaning forward in close synchrony, for example - and that strengthens their bond.

The benefits of body-language mimicry have been confirmed by numerous psychological studies. And in popular culture, mirroring is frequently urged on people as a strategy - for flirting or having a successful date, for closing a sale or acing a job interview. But new research suggests that mirroring may not always lead to positive social outcomes. In fact, sometimes the smarter thing to do is to refrain.
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