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Category: neural networks

Developmental cognitive neuroscience

Developmental cognitive neuroscience

Official journal of Flux: The Flux Society for Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience Editor-in-Chief:Professor Beatriz Luna, Ph.D   The journal publishes theoretical and research papers on cognitive brain development, from infancy through childhood and adolescence and into adulthood. It covers neurocognitive development and neurocognitive processing in both typical and atypical development, including social and affective aspects. Appropriate methodologies for the journal include, but are not limited to, functional neuroimaging (fMRI and MEG), electrophysiology (EEG and ERP), NIRS and transcranial magnetic stimulation, as…

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Darwinian domain-generality

Darwinian domain-generality

Subtitle: The role of evolutionary psychology in the modularity debate. MA thesis (2017) by Michael Lundie, Georgia State University. The abstract: “Evolutionary Psychology (EP) tends to be associated with a Massively Modular (MM) cognitive architecture. I argue that EP favors a non-MM cognitive architecture. The main point of dispute is whether central cognition, such as abstract reasoning, exhibits domain-general properties. Partisans of EP argue that domain-specific modules govern central cognition, for it is unclear how the cognitive mind could have…

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The geometry of space

The geometry of space

Following up on this cogsci article, this new article in Nautilus supports the previous work about how spatial motor schemas extend into abstract conceptual mapping. Excerpts: “We, unlike our computers, represent information in geometrical space.[…] The brain represents concepts in the same way that it represents space and your location, by using the same neural circuitry for the brain’s ‘inner GPS.’ […] The hippocampus’ place and grid cells, in other words, map not only physical space but conceptual space. It…

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The Neural Basis of Human prosocial behavior

The Neural Basis of Human prosocial behavior

A new Frontiers in Science ebook here. The blurb: With the rise of laboratory and field experimental economics, the famous prisoner’s dilemma, public good, dictator, ultimatum, and trust games have become the classical paradigms of studying prosocial behavior. Due to the increasing use of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) with human subjects playing economic games, the neural basis of prosocial behavior has been uncovered by a large amount of neural…

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Fantastic Fungi

Fantastic Fungi

Ever since seeing the Spore Drive in Star Trek: Discovery, as well as the story on the Wood Wide Web, I’ve been fascinated by the possibilities for fungi. It’s playing at The Guild Theater Dec. 9 – 12. See the preview below. Here’s the blurb from Rotten Tomatoes on this new documentary: “Fantastic Fungi, directed by Louie Schwartzberg, is a consciousness-shifting film that takes us on an immersive journey through time and scale into the magical earth beneath our feet,…

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The neuroscience of creativity

The neuroscience of creativity

Since this came up in our book discussion or Range yesterday,  something relevant from this article. It’s interesting how the salience network mediates between and integrates two normally one on, one off networks.  And how it is the connections between networks that seems to do the trick akin to the book’s description of how those with range make analogous connections between ideas and domains. “Three of these distinct brain networks — the default mode, the executive control network and the…

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how does music affect the brain?

how does music affect the brain?

The blurb: “In this episode of Tech Effects, we explore the impact of music on the brain and body. From listening to music to performing it, WIRED’s Peter Rubin looks at how music can change our moods, why we get the chills, and how it can actually change pathways in our brains.” For me the most interesting part was later in the video (10:20), how when we improvise we shut down the pre-frontal planning part of the brain and ‘just…

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The info processing (IP) metaphor of the brain is wrong

The info processing (IP) metaphor of the brain is wrong

Psychologist Robert Epstein, the former editor of Psychology Today, challenges anyone to show the brain processing information or data. The IP metaphor, he says, is so deeply embedded in thinking about thinking it prevents us from learning how the brain really works. Epstein also takes on popular luminaries including Ray Kurzweil and Henry Markram, seeing both exemplifying the extremes of wrongness we get into with the IP metaphor and the notion mental experience could persist outside the organic body. The…

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