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A Momentary Flow

Rebuilding worldviews one world at a time

“Language, rather than being merely descriptive, is ultimately constitutive of our sense of self. If we allow them to be, our day-to-day verbal slips, mishearings and bungled actions can be a welcome clue to the mysterious, flawed, contradictory, crazed idiosyncrasies of our own character and history. They can challenge and change us. In locating a ‘something more’ inside us, we keep desire alive, rather than mortified in the illusion that we could ever be masters of ourselves and our image.”

Jay Watts – Freudian slips

Source aeonmagazine.com

This quick visual test predicts IQ - A brief test of a person’s ability to filter out visual movement—in this case, black and white bars moving across a screen—can predict IQ. The test is the first purely sensory assessment to be strongly correlated with IQ and may provide a non-verbal and culturally unbiased tool for scientists seeking to understand neural processes associated with general intelligence. “Because intelligence is such a broad construct, you can’t really track it back to one part of the brain,” says Duje Tadin, a senior author on the study and an assistant professor of brain and cognitive sciences at the University of Rochester. “But since this task is so simple and so closely linked to IQ, it may give us clues about what makes a brain more efficient, and, consequently, more intelligent.” (via Futurity.org – This quick visual test predicts IQ)

This quick visual test predicts IQ

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A brief test of a person’s ability to filter out visual movement—in this case, black and white bars moving across a screen—can predict IQ.

The test is the first purely sensory assessment to be strongly correlated with IQ and may provide a non-verbal and culturally unbiased tool for scientists seeking to understand neural processes associated with general intelligence.

“Because intelligence is such a broad construct, you can’t really track it back to one part of the brain,” says Duje Tadin, a senior author on the study and an assistant professor of brain and cognitive sciences at the University of Rochester. “But since this task is so simple and so closely linked to IQ, it may give us clues about what makes a brain more efficient, and, consequently, more intelligent.” (via Futurity.org – This quick visual test predicts IQ)

Source futurity.org

Where Do Thoughts Occur? Sure, your brain is a wonder. But some cognitive scientists argue that without the help of your body, your brain would be nowhere. | DiscoverMagazine.com

We think big. We think out loud. We think outside the box. We think on our feet. But what we don’t do is think entirely inside our heads. Thoughts aren’t confined to our brains — they course through a network that expands to our bodies, perhaps eliminating, at times, the need for complex thought.

The notion that we think with the body — the startling conclusion of a field called embodied cognition — flies in the face of long-standing views. Early cognitive psychologists defined thought as an activity that resides in the brain: Sensory data come in from eyes and ears, fingers and funny bone, and the mind turns these signals into disembodied representations that it manipulates in what we call thinking.

Sure, the body may collect sensory information, like a computer collects information via mouse and keyboard, but according to the traditional view of cognition, it’s the brain that does the thinking.

But dozens of studies over the past decade challenge that view, suggesting instead that our thoughts are inextricably linked to physical experience. As University of Toronto psychologist Spike Lee puts it, bodily states “aren’t some extraneous thing — they’re part of the thinking process.”

Are the orange circles in this picture (right) different sizes? Your answer can reveal the size of your brain. Most people perceive the central circle to be smaller, an effect known as the Ebbinghaus illusion. Samuel Schwarzkopf and colleagues at University College London created a series of images in which the relative sizes of the two circles varied, and asked 30 volunteers to estimate which of the two was larger. The team then scanned each volunteer’s brain using fMRI while they were shown a black dot in various points of their visual field. From the scans, they were able to assess the size of the visual cortex. They found that people with a smaller visual cortex experienced the Ebbinghaus illusion more strongly. Schwarzkopf suggests that this is because the circuits in the visual cortex responsible for the illusion are the same size in everyone, but cover a greater proportion of a smaller visual cortex, causing a stronger effect. The team also found that people with a smaller visual cortex tended to have bigger brains overall, though it is not clear why. Journal reference: Nature Neuroscience, DOI: 10.1038/nn.2706

Are the orange circles in this picture (right) different sizes? Your answer can reveal the size of your brain.

Most people perceive the central circle to be smaller, an effect known as the Ebbinghaus illusion. Samuel Schwarzkopf and colleagues at University College London created a series of images in which the relative sizes of the two circles varied, and asked 30 volunteers to estimate which of the two was larger.

The team then scanned each volunteer’s brain using fMRI while they were shown a black dot in various points of their visual field. From the scans, they were able to assess the size of the visual cortex.

They found that people with a smaller visual cortex experienced the Ebbinghaus illusion more strongly.

Schwarzkopf suggests that this is because the circuits in the visual cortex responsible for the illusion are the same size in everyone, but cover a greater proportion of a smaller visual cortex, causing a stronger effect.

The team also found that people with a smaller visual cortex tended to have bigger brains overall, though it is not clear why.

Journal reference: Nature Neuroscience, DOI: 10.1038/nn.2706

Source newscientist.com

fastcompany: Got an emotion that you can’t quite find the words for? The Emotionary can probably help. It’s a website that invents new words for those moments when you just can’t find the right one. Help us come up with more words that describe modern emotions. Here, a few you’ve submitted so far: Elacceleration: The belief that pushing an elevator button repeatedly will make it come faster.  Sarcasmus: Sarcastic + charismatic Thinkonit: To postpone. What other modern emotions don’t have words for them?

fastcompany:

Got an emotion that you can’t quite find the words for? The Emotionary can probably help. It’s a website that invents new words for those moments when you just can’t find the right one.

Help us come up with more words that describe modern emotions. Here, a few you’ve submitted so far:

  • Elacceleration: The belief that pushing an elevator button repeatedly will make it come faster. 
  • Sarcasmus: Sarcastic + charismatic
  • Thinkonit: To postpone.

What other modern emotions don’t have words for them?

Reblogged from Fast Company