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Category: psychology

Poor understanding correlates with religious/supernatural belief

Poor understanding correlates with religious/supernatural belief

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According to this article in Applied Cognitive Psychology. The summary follows. The entire article can be accessed at Sci-Hub. “Although supernatural beliefs often paint a peculiar picture about the physical world, the possibility that the beliefs might be based on inadequate understanding of the non-social world has not received research attention. In this study (N = 258), we therefore examined how physical-world skills and knowledge predict religious and paranormal beliefs. The results showed that supernatural beliefs correlated with all variables that were…

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Future discussion topic recommendations

Future discussion topic recommendations

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Several of us met on Labor Day with the goal of identifying topics for at least five future monthly meetings. (Thanks, Dave N, for hosting!) Being the overachievers we are, we pushed beyond the goal. Following are the resulting topics, which will each have its own article on this site where we can begin organizing references for the discussion: sex-related influences on emotional memory gross and subtle brain differences (e.g., “walls of the third ventricle – sexual nuclei”) “Are there…

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There’s no such thing as a male or female brain

There’s no such thing as a male or female brain

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See this New Scientist article. Excerpt: When the group looked at each individual brain scan, however, they found that very few people had all of the brain features they might be expected to have, based on their sex. Across the sample, between 0 and 8 per cent of people had “all-male” or “all-female” brains, depending on the definition. “Most people are in the middle,” says Joel. This means that, averaged across many people, sex differences in brain structure do exist,…

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‘Entangled’ consciousness app approaching release

‘Entangled’ consciousness app approaching release

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The Global Consciousness Project, Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS, for which I was once Hawaii state coordinator) and Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research (PEAR) are collaborating to release a smart phone app, Entangled, that aims to Monitor your mind’s influence on your physical environment Let you take part in large-scale consciousness experiments Support ongoing development of a”consciousness technology” platform for developers and artists Monitor global consciousness data in real-time Before you think I’ve gone off the deep end, let me explain that I…

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Meltzoff on Piaget and theory-theory

Meltzoff on Piaget and theory-theory

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Continuing the last post on developmental cognitive neuroscience (DCN), Meltzoff is one of the pioneers of DCN and here’s what he had to say in this ’99 article. “There has been a profound, even revolutionary, shift in our theory of developmental psychology. The revolution began with challenges to Piaget’s theory of cognitive development, particularly his views of infancy. As everybody who has attended scientific conferences, read technical journals, or monitored the popular media knows, modern research has discovered that young children…

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Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience

Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience

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The Journal of Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience is here and it’s open access. This Wikipedia article gives a good overview of this developing field.  And here‘s a Psychology Today article applying it to healthy adult development.  From the latter: “The first guiding principle is that it is necessary to ‘quiet the limbic system’ (van der Kolk et al., 2005) to help emerging adults achieve a greater sense of safety. Quieting techniques facilitate attachments by promoting self-soothing and regulation. This is especially…

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Collective Enlightenment Through Postmetaphysical Eyes

Collective Enlightenment Through Postmetaphysical Eyes

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The paper can be found here. The abstract follows: Enlightenment has had broadly different definitions is the East and West. In the East it is seen as an individual accessing meditative states that transcend the world of form in a metaphysical reality. In the West it is more about individual development to abstract reasoning, which can accurately represent empirical reality but is itself an a priori, metaphysical capacity. Enlightenment in either case is based on metaphysical individual achievements. However the…

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Please recommend sources on the evolution of political impulses and thinking

Please recommend sources on the evolution of political impulses and thinking

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In preparation for the March meeting topic, Your Political Brain, please recommend any resources you have found particularly enlightening about why humans evolved political thinking. Also, please share references about how brain functions lead to political perceptions. I’m assuming political perceptions result from more fundamental cognitive orientations, and that those arise in part from one’s genetics and in part from environment (during development and afterward). Let’s use the following description from Wikipedia: Politics is the process of making decisions applying…

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Mass and activity of brain structures correlate with political perspectives

Mass and activity of brain structures correlate with political perspectives

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Brain imaging research indicates some aspects of individual political orientation correlate significantly with the mass and activity of particular brain structures including the right amygdala and the insula. This correlation may derive in part from genetics, but is also influenced by environment and behavior. “there’s a critical nuance here. Schreiber thinks the current research suggests not only that having a particular brain influences your political views, but also that having a particular political view influences and changes your brain. The…

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