Relativity by M.C. Escher, 1953 / Wikimedia Commons One of the most remarkable human capacities is to perceive and understand mental states. This capacity, often labeled “theory of mind,” consists of an array of psychological processes that play essential roles in human social life. We review some of these roles, examine what happens when the[…]
MIT neuroscientists have found evidence that the brain’s ability to control what it’s thinking about relies on low-frequency brain waves known as beta rhythms. Brain rhythms act as a gate for information entering and leaving the mind. By Anne Trafton / 01.26.2018 MIT neuroscientists have found evidence that the brain’s ability to control what it’s[…]
Image: Chelsea Turner/MIT Study identifies neurons that fire at the beginning and end of a behavior as it becomes a habit. By Anne Trafton / 02.08.2018 Our daily lives include hundreds of routine habits, made up of many smaller actions, such as picking up our toothbrush, squeezing toothpaste onto it, and then lifting the brush[…]
You heard it say what? Roman Stetsyk/Shutterstock.com Where you come down on the latest internet hullabaloo depends on how your brain fills in gaps in the sounds you hear. By Dr. Jennell Vick / 05.16.2018 Assistant Professor of Communication Sciences Case Western Reserve University As a speech scientist, I never thought I’d see so much excitement on social media[…]
MIT graduate student Hilary Richardson helps a child into an MRI scanner for a study of how children’s brains develop the ability to think about the mental states of other people.Richardson shows the brain scans to one of the children participating in the study. / Photo by Trillium Studios Children as young as 3 have brain[…]
Image via Corfina Edited by Matthew A. McIntosh / 03.09.2018 Historian Brewminate Editor-in-Chief 1 – Introduction to Intelligence 1.1 – Defining Intelligence 1.1.1 – Introduction Over the last century or so, intelligence has been defined in many different ways. The meaning of the word “intelligence” has been hotly contested for many years. In today’s psychological[…]
Image from Life Science Databases via Wikimedia Commons Edited by Matthew A. McIntosh / 03.06.2018 Historian Brewminate Editor-in-Chief 1 – History of Cognition 1.1 – Introduction “Cognition” is a term for a wide swath of mental functions that relate to knowledge and information processing. 1.1.1 – Cogito Ergo Sum Maybe you’ve heard the phrase I think , therefore[…]
Image from event-horizon / Creative Commons Edited by Matthew A. McIntosh / 02.25.2018 Historian Brewminate Editor-in-Chief 1 – Introduction to Sensation 1.1 – Introduction Sensation involves the relay of information from sensory receptors to the brain and enables a person to experience the world around them. 1.1.1 – Overview Sensation and perception are two separate processes[…]
“I am fascinated by how people work, why we do what we do, and why we think what we think,” says senior and Marshall Scholar Liang Zhou / Photo by Ian MacLellan MIT senior and Marshall Scholar Liang Zhou wants to elucidate the neural basis for our thoughts and intuitions. By Fatima Husain / 02.01.2018 Halfway[…]