Encefalus

Is he self-aware?
Today we’re dealing with some revolutionary research concerning the subject of self-awareness in birds.
 
Mirror-Induced Behavior in the Magpie (Pica pica): Evidence of Self-Recognition Prior H, Schwarz A, Güntürkün O PLoS Biology Vol. 6, No. 8, e202 doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.0060202
The above research was published a few days ago in PLoS Biology. It is the research that I believe will [...]

Remember what we were saying at How the Dark Knight, cartoons and video games make you smarter and what this had to do with the Flynn effect. I found more proof to support my theories!
Take this link I found in Sharp Brains: Videogames for Cognitive Training?
It commented on this report Playing Video [...]

Today we’re revisiting the Dark Knight. This time we’ll move in a different context, letting the Dark Knight inspire us into a conversation about the relation between cartoons, intelligence, and the IQ gap between generations called the Flynn Effect. So let’s start right away!
 
Psychablog: A Cohort Effect to The Dark Knight Experience?.
I stumbled upon this [...]

Today’s subject is the social information flow. I had expressed a few ideas in a previous article called Dangerous Ideas: Information and cultural revolution in the age of the internet or metacognition in the modern society. A recent article I found steered my thoughts for once again so I felt compelled to return to this [...]

Musical key to unlocking teenage wasteland | theage.com.au.
I came across this very interesting article the other day. It describes how music genres correlate to personality traits. The findings are the following: 

WHAT STUDIES SAY ABOUT YOUR SOUNDS:
POP: Conformists, overly responsible, role-conscious, struggling with sexuality or peer acceptance.
HEAVY METAL: Higher levels of suicidal ideation, depression, drug use, [...]

Out of the Box: Scientific American.
The above link comes from an article published in Scientific American Mind. It has a conversation around three individuals: Julia Cameron, an awarded poet, film-maker and playwright, Robert Epstein, who is a psychologist and has worked in Scientific American Mind and Psychology Today, and John Houtz who is a psychology [...]

BPS RESEARCH DIGEST: Men’s sexual orientation recognised in a fraction of a second.
The above link points to a very interesting research (Brief exposures: Male sexual orientation is accurately perceived at 50 ms). The experimenters showed a series of faces to the subjects and the subjects could identify with 57% accuracy which of them were homosexual. The [...]

Spheres of Influence: Scientific American.
The above was article was published in Scientific American Mind
Its author is Michael Gazzaniga one of the most respected figures in neuropsychology.

Michael Gazzaniga
If you don’t know him, he’s the guy who made the most important work in the lateralization of the two hemispheres. You’ve probably heard before that the left hemisphere [...]

Why play a losing game? Study uncovers why low-income people buy lottery tickets.
This above link is some news posted on Eurekalert. It’s a study proving that poor people are more likely to buy lottery tickets
"In the study, published in the July issue of the Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, participants who were made to feel [...]

Tough Choices: How Making Decisions Tires Your Brain: Scientific American
This is a link to an article published in Scientific American
It describes, in short, how our brain works in some ways like a muscle. It can be depleted after repeated use, leading to false choices. What is so interesting about this article is not the fact [...]