Best products from r/cogsci

I can't even imagine how hard writing a blog is, so I absolutely commend you for trying it out!

However, I think mistercow had some very valid points to go along with his cool username. I had a lot of the same thoughts, and almost stopped reading on several occasions even though the subject matter is of immense interest to me (I'm a pediatric neuropsychologist). I don't think mistercow was offended by your blog entry, but I think he was justifiably confused and maybe even frustrated by some of the vagueness and conflation of related concepts in your post (and 'prefrontal visual cortex' doesn't make it any better... I have no idea what you might mean by that? Maybe 'primary visual cortex'? But that doesn't make sense either...).

If you want suggestions, I read a lot of sciency blogs as a diversion from all the usual textbooks and journal articles I read, so I'm happy to give some friendly advice.

The blogs that I find most successful focus small - they only try to tackle one thing at a time, for example. If you want to talk about using visualization to help improve your memory, great, awesome, do it - but only do that. I don't think you need to also go into your views on caffeine, or hydration, or chess, or mentally-effortful series practice, or the use of imagination to solve problems, or your lizard brain, or visual pattern recognition (which is done by entirely different brain systems than the ones involved in active problem solving, BTW - that's what mistercow had a problem with... you can't just "make" a logical problem that requires cortical effort into a subcortical visual recognition problem even if you wanted to, though you can use visualization strategies to help you solve problems, which sounds similar but is really entirely different), or any of the other things you touch on in about one sentence each. You could save all of these ideas for other posts, for example. This gives you more to write about in subsequent posts, keeps your focus for each post laser sharp, and directs your readers' attention exactly where you want it.

Once you've figured out what you want to talk about, get a hook. A lot of popsci bloggers use a current research study, a classic research finding, or an everyday example as the introduction to a topic. So, if you want to talk about visualization in the pegs of loci sense (which I think is where you're headed?), you might introduce readers to the general topic by having them first try to remember something using a verbal cue (e.g., quick - what brand of spaghetti do you usually buy?), and then try to remember it using a visual cue (much easier: what color is the box? where in the grocery store is it located?). Or, briefly describe a classic study on how effective visualization is as a memory strategy. Alternatively, talk about someone who is really good at memorization using visualization strategies, like those people who can memorize hundreds of playing cards at once, or someone like Daniel Tammet.

Then, give your readers what they've come for - explain science in a way that's directly applicable to their everyday lives. That's a lot easier said than done... you've got to get the science right, the explanation right, and the implications of the science correct, all without being too simplistic or going beyond what the science can support -- a delicate balance to be sure!

As an example of why this is so tricky, and I promise I'm not trying to poke holes in your specific post here, but I had a lot of trouble with your assertion that "At some point, people stop using their imagination to solve problems" -- I am literally not even sure what specific scientific findings you might be thinking about.

Certainly people don't "stop" using visualization or imagination or creativity or any such thing. I think you might be thinking about the sort of 'common sense' idea that as kids grow up, they 'lose' their creativity and imagination? However, science doesn't really support this. In fact, somewhat counterintutively, this common 'experience' that adults report results from the fact that we get better at thinking linearly and using useful cognitive heuristics as we age, but this massive increase in problem-solving ability comes at the possible expense of the ability to think in illogical and/or inefficient (and therefore potentially creative) ways. This leads to some strange research findings (that in fact might make a good blog post!), such as that kids are better than adults at not falling into some easy cognitive traps (e.g., together, a ball and a bat cost $1.10 - the bat costs $1 more than ball - how much do each cost?). Ironically, though, you then go on to recommend some 'repetitive' pattern-recognition-y mental exercises, which train the very skills adults have that kids have less of! So, here's an area where I think you might want to tighten up what you're thinking about, and/or your explanation, and/or your understanding of the research base in the area.

In general, while you seem to have great intentions, I think a general cognitive psych book might provide you with some helpful background... a technical but yet understandable one on how people learn to think is Why Don't Students Like School?.

haha I understand that feeling.

On the psychology/cognitive science/neuroscience side:

Stanislas Dehaene argues that learning to read rewires the brain by co-opting other capacities and essentially constructing a new neural network dedicated to processing written language. It's an interesting theory and a great book, but a little dense.

Raymond Mar has done a bunch of interesting work on fiction and empathy. Here's a link to most of his papers.

There's some research on how fiction more broadly can increase altruism:

Barraza, J. A., Alexander, V., Beavin, L. E., Terris, E. T., & Zak, P. J. (2015). The heart of the story: Peripheral physiology during narrative exposure predicts charitable giving. Biological Psychology, 105, 138-143. doi:10.1016/j.biopsycho.2015.01.008

A more philosophical take - Martha Nussbaum on 'reading for life'.

Here are some books that take a bit of a general overview:

Lisa Zunshine - Why We Read

My own area is actually situating a lot of this research in an evolutionary context - looking at how and why we tell stories and what role they have served over longer timeframes. Here are some others that have written on the topic. I disagree with them in quite a few places, and I'm essentially arguing that we need to expand on their accounts, but there's a lot to agree with as well, and they're worth a read:

Brian Boyd - On The Origin of Stories

Ellen Spolsky - The Contracts of Fiction

Jonathon Gottschall - The Storytelling Animal

Let me know if there's any papers/books that you can't get access to, I have them all in PDF format and would be happy to forward you anything you're interested in reading that isn't available to you.

As to why I chose the topic, essentially I have a bit of a generalist educational background: I majored in philosophy, psychology, history/politics and english literature/creative writing as an undergraduate, and did a Master's in cognitive science and philosophy. I'm what you would most definitely refer to as over-educated, and I don't mean that in a good way - I have an Australian equivalent to a student loan that isn't pretty (although still much lower than what it would have cost me in the US!). So, I wanted a way of getting paid to read and think about all the areas I'm interested in - and it turns out writing about the evolution of fiction takes me across a whole range of disciplines and a whole range of research areas, including evolutionary biology/psychology, neuroscience, anthropology, economics, literary theory, etc. That, and I guess I have always disagreed with the idea of art as simply escapism or entertainment and wanted to look at how important it has been, and continues to be, in shaping who we are and where we're going.

>Thus, these brain pathways...also perform previously unidentified functions that include the detection of gastro-intestinal and metabolic signals.

or better yet.

>Food palatability and hedonic value play central roles in nutrient intake. However, postingestive effects can influence food preferences independently of palatability, although the neurobiological bases of such mechanisms remain poorly understood. Of central interest is whether the same brain reward circuitry that is responsive to palatable rewards also encodes metabolic value independently of taste signaling. Here we show that trpm5/ mice, which lack the cellular machinery required for sweet taste transduction, can develop a robust preference for sucrose solutions based solely on caloric content. Sucrose intake induced dopamine release in the ventral striatum of these sweet-blind mice, a pattern usually associated with receipt of palatable rewards. Furthermore, single neurons in this same ventral striatal region showed increased sensitivity to caloric intake even in the absence of gustatory inputs. Our findings suggest that calorie-rich nutrients can directly influence brain reward circuits that control food intakeindependently of palatability or functional taste transduction.

It's good to know there is also a reward system that stems from neurons in the gut, as well as the ones in the tongue. Great observation.

>This is a troubling idea

I am not sure why this is troubling. The gut-brain pathways are exactly not well understood. What is understood is exactly the taste-bud opioid pathways and how to exploit them.. Is there a way to fool the gut system? Surely. The early easy fruit show this has to do with chewing and saliva processing. There are probably even better ways to do this.

The implication of the conclusion is that we are wired for overeating, whereas the conclusion from the actual study, indicates we are wire to overeat palatable food with some component that exists in the gut that can also be trained to overeat. Not exactly the same thing.

A great way of improving your memory is with the use of mnemonic devices. Mnemonics, if you’re not familiar with the term, refers to using associations or recognizing patterns to remember information. As you experienced yourself, the human mind has an incredible ability to remember visual information. Visual memory seems easiest for most, and can pack a tremendous amount of information relative to other forms of memory.

One example of a mnemonic device that takes advantage of our innate ability to remember visually is the method of loci. People have used this device to remember the order of items, such as decks of cards. The device requires the user to use a familiar path in their memory (such as a walk through a park, or through your house). Then by starting at the beginning of this "memory path", the user places objects along the path. The order of the items coincides with the path. The objects are exaggerated in memory to make them more memorable. For example, in memorizing a grocery list you could imagine the food items as appearing massive or animated in some strange way. There are strategies that build on this method and make it more efficient; such as a the Dominic system and the PAO.

I recently read the book Moonwalking with Einstein, which I found very inspiring. It will show you a few simple techniques, but more importantly it will likely encourage you to take mnemonics more seriously. The book is mostly centered on the author, who is a journalist. He visits the US memory competition, and after interviewing several people, realizes the participants didn't possess a unique innate ability for memorization. Instead, they were all using mnemonic devices. He meets a spectator at the event who participates in the world memory competition. After some discussion, he is encouraged by the professional to train and compete in next US memory competition. The author sees this as an opportunity for a story, and agrees. With the help of professionals and a year of training, he enters the US competition and manages first place.

There is lot of great information in the book which is cited by a lot of reputable sources. The author is quick to point out from the beginning what can be expected and not expected. Mnemonic devices still require effort to apply, but they have a pretty good return. The book description can be found here.

I'm afraid I haven't gotten too far into the field of mnemonics, so I can't recommend a more comprehensive book. I hope that once I get the time I can practice more on applying these methods.

The technique all the professionals use at memory contests is called "placing" (my translation). You place a new piece of information (memory) in an already existing one.

It works by utilising the fact that you already have a lot of strong memories ready to be used to store more information in them. These strong memories are of all the places you have ever been. Think about the house you grew up in. You can vividly remember how the rooms look and how they are connected.

If you want to see how this can help you remember stuff then do the following (it will take a couple of minutes but you will learn a lot...):

Pick 5 rooms, or separate places in the house you grew up in (or other house of your choice). Start at the entrance to the house and make a route so that room 1 = entrance, room 2 = storage, room 3 = living room etc. You can move through walls and ceilings in order to finish your route. Write down your route from 1 to 5 on a piece of paper and play through the route a few times in your mind.

OK, so now you have your route, that was easy right? You now have the map in which to place new information. Proceed to the next steps (it will make sense in the end):

You are now going to imagine a Fire Hydrant sitting in room 1. Visualize it so that it makes an impact on your brain cells. Make it a bright color. Have water gushing out.

In room 2 you see a Helicopter. Make it almost hit you with its rotors to make it stick in your mind.

In room 3 you see a Lion. Does it look friendly or is it attacking you?

In room 4 you see Beyonce. Is she naked? Is she smiling? Is she singing? Make a strong image.

In room 5 you see a Boat. What is a boat doing here? What kind of boat is it? The more absurd the images are the more they will stick...

To summarize:

Room1 = Fire Hydrant

Room2 = Helicopter

Room 3 = Lion

Room 4 = Beyonce

Room 5 = Boat

Play through the route a couple of times with the different objects in place. It should only take a minute. Proceed when you are finished visualizing.

So what is the point of all this? Well, what you have actually memorized are the first 5 elements of the periodic table in the correct order! All those weird objects (and Beyonce) are representations of the elements:

HYdrant is HYdrogen

HElicopter is HElium

LIon is LIthium

BEyonce is BEryllium

BOat is BOron

It might seem like a lot of work going through all these steps but the technique works incredibly well. If you re-play the route the next day it will make it stick even better and so on. I bet you will remember this route very well a week from now. I strongly recommend the book Memo where this technique and many others are described in detail.

Robert Cialdini in his book Influence: Science and Practice (p164f) mentions that food makes people more relaxed and open to others opinions, that is why e.g. in politics votes are being swayed over dinners.
further he goes on:

> [Razran (1938 & 1940)] found that his subjects became fonder of people and things they experienced while they were eating.

So, I guess that makes a clear case: We like what we encounter while eating. And obviously if you add some romance, a bit of alcohol, nice music, pleasant conversation, good perfumes (& pheromones), and that people grow to like things more that they spend longer time with - dinners are a good first date. Maybe the principle of consistency also plays a role - once you commit to spending a dinner with someone you will try to justify to yourself that you did so, by 'inventing' more reasons. Additionally, the spending-dinner-together, especially if the less choosy partner (usually the male) pays might create a certain feeling of indebtedness that could also lead to further dates/actions.

But tbh I think there is too much (socially constructed) pressure and other first dates might be more valuable, e.g. a coffee (caffeine increases the heart rate, which in turn is often interpreted by the one experiencing it as physical arousal as reaction to the other person) with cake (sweet, pleasant + warm coffee = excellent creation of sympathy) that might be a better version.

I'm not sure where that is from, but there was a study indicating that couples that are rated as "not matching" by outsiders often met during emotional events - e.g. rollercoasters, concerts, ... take your date to some exciting place - that gives you endorphins and other fun hormones which create a stronger bonding.

If you're actually looking to get your hands dirty in connectionist techniques, and you don't mind a pretty academic tone, then CECN is fantastic. it has exercises in free and extremely powerful neural network software, but is interesting independent of that.

On the other hand, if you want something a little more along the lines of popular science writing like on intelligence, "Rhythms of the Brain" is fantastic (though pretty neuroscience heavy). i can't recommend a more purely ai book for you, though; CECN is all the AI i need ;)

'Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach' (it has machine learning and maybe less, datamining) is all I've used (besides Mitchell's one, that I'm anti-recommending), so I can't positively recommend any new ones. But there are several new titles. I'd try reading around the web to get an overview (or borrow one, even Mitchell's, from a library). Then, when you believe you know better what you're looking for look at books. I mean I could randomly pick one of the newer ones on Amazon but that's what it'd be. Chris Bishop (mentioned in the other reply) is a good writer + smart guy, I've been meaning to get that book of his; he's probably a safe bet but, reading around on the web first can't hurt either. The Weka-using datamining book might be an easy place to start, it's got a complete Java toolkit (which you can download free independently), Chris Bishop's book looks advanced. I might say Wikipedia but it doesn't look that helpful.

A simple technique I also use along with daily meditation is to set a 15 minute timer whenever I need to concentrate for extended periods (e.g. coding). I know this sounds counter-intuitive, but bear with me for a second. I adopted this idea from a comment by Thich Nhat Nahn on being present in the moment.

I set the timer on my iPod or a desktop app for 15 minutes. When it goes off I immediately stop what I am doing, take three deep breaths, be present in the moment, and then return to my activity. If I've been distracted in those 15 minutes, this gentle reminder returns me to my work. If I've been concentrating well, this is a gentle break and quick sustenance.

I find this trick helps increase self-awareness, break up a long period of concentration into easy to digest portions, improve my productivity and push distractions to a defined "rest" period (usually after a couple hours).

Couple this with a meditation practice (start with just 10-15 minute sessions) and I suspect you'll find your effectiveness increasing significantly.

By the way, I strongly recommend Thich Nhat Nahn's writings on meditation and presence. I started with The Miracle of Mindfulness and have read many others as well as listened to several of his talks available online.

Good luck!

I have a couple (although I have read most of your books, and my favorite is "The man who mistook his wife for a hat is my favorite!)

59 seconds to change your life (Dr. .Richard Wiseman) -
https://www.amazon.com/59-Seconds-Change-Under-Minute/dp/0307474860

In this book wiseman pulls together many interesting studies and turns them into a kind of science-based self help book, showing how you can do simple things to make yourself happy, and how the science backs up what you are doing. Its kind of a "science does life hacks" type of book and I found it fascinating


The conscious universe - (Dr. Dean Radin)
https://www.amazon.com/Conscious-Universe-Scientific-Psychic-Phenomena/dp/0061778990/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1474111002&sr=1-1&keywords=dean+radin+conscious

I think this one has to rate as controversial - but I personally found it a compelling read and it shifted my world view off kilter for a long time. Basically the author pulls together all of the experiments on telepathy, clairvoyance, etc. He is an experimental statistician and is able to make a strong case for there being some sort of physchic effect that science cannot explain. I have followed the topic through the years since, but I have not found a particularly strong rebuttal to this books contents

Another one I recently read

Peak - The new science of expertise (Anders Ericson and Robert Pool)
https://www.amazon.com/Peak-Secrets-New-Science-Expertise/dp/0544456238/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1474111419&sr=1-3&keywords=peak
This book is by the guy who coined the 10,000 hours rule (the one which Gladwell uses in Outliers) - It goes into a lot of scientific studies which have been run investigating how experts become experts - By now we know the soundbyte - 10000 hours - but I thought it was very interesting to see how this applies for different types of expertise, and for the neat experiments which have been run

I just read a book on introversion that argues strongly against "brainstorming" and other design-by-committee ideas using a different example from Apple: Steve Wozniak designing the hardware for the original Apple computer almost entirely on his own.

Perhaps crowds do best in answering questions with definite answers but limited availability of facts, but individuals do best when innovation and creativity are required, provided the individual is talented and knowledgable on the subject.

Q: Do you think __ could benefit from mathematics?

A: Yes.

Seriously though, I know neuroscience has benefited immensely from mathematical models. Indeed, there are several people in my lab that work on this. You might be interested in checking out neural nets or cognitive modeling.

Also, this isn't exactly related, but anyone with your interested should definitely check out this awesome talk on "memristors."

It also looks like math can benefit from cognitive science, or at least mathematics education. See this book, for example.

I'm a bit late to the party here, but I wanted to thank you for this definition:

>A representation is a sign. As such it consists of three components: a shape that designates, a reference that is designated, and content that mediates this relation.

I think the idea of (mental) representation-as-relation was explained well (and put to good use) in Gallistel and King's book Memory and the Computational Brain, or as my undergrad mentor liked to call it, "How not to be an Idiot in Cognitive Science". This is from their chapter on representations:

> ...if the world is to communicate information to the brain, then the brain must be capable of representing and assigning probabilities to the possible messages that it might receive. Thus, the brain is a representing system – or a collection of representing systems. The entities in the brain that represent possible messages are symbols. The aspects of the world that it represents – the possible messages for which it has symbols – constitute represented systems. There are processes – sensory processes, for example – that causally connect the brain’s symbols to their referents outside the brain. There are other brain processes – the processes that control a directed reach, for example – that pick out the entity in the represented system to which a symbol in the representing system refers. The first set of processes implement functions that map from the represented system to the representing system; the second implement functions that map the other way, from the representing system to the represented system. The two systems, together with the functions that map between them, constitute a representation, provided three conditions are met:

> 1) The mapping from entities in the represented system to their symbols in the representing system is causal (as, for example, when light reflected off an object in the world acts on sensory receptors in an eye causing neural signals that eventuate in a percept of the object).

> 2) The mapping is structure preserving: The mapping from entities in the represented system to their symbols is such that functions defined on the represented entities are mirrored by functions of the same mathematical form between their corresponding symbols. Structure-preserving mappings are called homomorphisms.

> 3) Symbolic operations (procedures) in the representing systems are (at least sometimes) behaviorally efficacious: they control and direct appropriate behavior within, or with respect to, the represented system.

>The behavioral efficacy of structure-preserving mappings from the represented system to the representing system makes a functioning homomorphism, which is the two-word definition of a representation.

I really like this idea and am hoping to see this list grow, so I figure I should at least throw in my two cents to help kick this off.

I would recommend the book A User's guide to the Brain: Perception, Attention, and the Four Theaters of the Brain by John J. Ratey to anyone who is really new to the field, or is trying to figure out if they are interested in cognitive science.

This is the type of book that you might have to read for an intro to cognitive science class. It isn't too technical, but gives a very good overview and you will learn a lot.

Derek Bickerton has debunked the theory that humans are smart simply because they have grown "bigger brains". Read his book Adam's Tongue.

Some Neanderthals had brains larger than present-day humans but they weren't nearly so smart. Other mammals have large brains but are not so smart. Bickerton has a much better explanation for human intelligence.

I apologize for the x-post, but it appears /r/cogsci doesn't allow self.posts, so I submitted it again. Sorry, but methinks relevant to /r/cogsci.

Given that Daniel Dennett has recently published a book on thought experiments called Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking, I thought it would be good to show one of Dennett's most famous intuition pumps.

This section of the movie is based on Daniel Dennett's though experiment first published in Brainstorms: Philosophical Essays on Mind and Psychology and reprinted in his famous compendium with Douglas Hofstadter, The Mind's I.

The original paper is available here and elsewhere online.

The movie itself is a documentary and dramatization of several themes in the book The Mind's I and includes an interview with Douglas Hofstadter earlier on (a name that should be familiar to many /r/cogsci folks)

The cogsci-relevant parts of the movie are a bit dated, but still relevant nonetheless.

Both

The Owners Manual for the Brain By Pierce J. Howard

A User's Guide for the Brain John J. Ratey

Are great introduction books.

What an ass. There's already a perfectly good cog sci/philosophy of mind book called "The Mind's I." It's a collection of essays edited by Hofstaedter, the guy who wrote Goedel, Escher, Bach.

http://www.amazon.com/Minds-Fantasies-Reflections-Self-Soul/dp/0465030912/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1290264547&sr=8-1

Here is a fun book for you to read.

http://www.amazon.com/Rhythms-Brain-Gyorgy-Buzsaki/dp/0195301064