Mind Hacks
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Mind Hacks is an ongoing neuroscience and psychology blog page where authors post daily psychology news, views and commentary on mind and brain issue. The blog explores the psychological tricks and techniques to find out what's going on inside your brain.
Mind Hacks
2y ago
The effect varies for different people. Take a moment and look at this. Some people don’t see anything special: just a blue pupil in a red eye.
Image: CC-BY Tom Stafford 2022
For me though, there is an incredibly strong depth illusion – the blue and the red appear as if they are at different distances.
I can enhance the effect by blinking rapidly, turning the brightness up on my screen and viewing in a dark room. Sometimes it disappears for a few seconds before snapping back in. Because the colours appear at different depths they even appear to glide separately when I move my head from side to ..read more
Mind Hacks
2y ago
The effect varies for different people. Take a moment and look at this. Some people don’t see anything special: just a blue pupil in a red eye.
Image: CC-BY Tom Stafford 2022
For me though, there is an incredibly strong depth illusion – the blue and the red appear as if they are at different distances.
I can enhance the effect by blinking rapidly, turning the brightness up on my screen and viewing in a dark room. Sometimes it disappears for a few seconds before snapping back in. Because the colours appear at different depths they even appear to glide separately when I move my head from side to ..read more
Mind Hacks
2y ago
Oliver Selfridge was an early pioneer of artificial intelligence, and in 1959 wrote a classic paper outlining a system by which simple units, each carrying out a specialised function, could be connected together to perform complex, cognitive tasks.
This ‘pandemonium architecture‘ inspired research in neural networks, which in turn led to modern machine learning about which we hear so much these days.
The Pandemonium model is best known through some fantastically characteristic illustrations by Leanne Hinton in Lindsey & Norman’s 1977 introductory psychology textbook ‘Human Information Proc ..read more
Mind Hacks
2y ago
The Guardian recently published an article saying “People won’t get ‘tired’ of social distancing – and it’s unscientific to suggest otherwise”. “Behavioural fatigue” the piece said, “has no basis in science”.
‘Behavioural fatigue’ became a hot topic because it was part of the UK Government’s justification for delaying the introduction of stricter public health measures. They quickly reversed this position and we’re now in the “empty streets” stage of infection control.
But it’s an important topic and is relevant to all of us as we try to maintain important behavioural changes that benefit othe ..read more
Mind Hacks
3y ago
Oliver Selfridge was an early pioneer of artificial intelligence, and in 1959 wrote a classic paper outlining a system by which simple units, each carrying out a specialised function, could be connected together to perform complex, cognitive tasks.
This ‘pandemonium architecture‘ inspired research in neural networks, which in turn led to modern machine learning about which we hear so much these days.
The Pandemonium model is best known through some fantastically characteristic illustrations by Leanne Hinton in Lindsey & Norman’s 1977 introductory psychology textbook ‘Human Information Proc ..read more
Mind Hacks
4y ago
The Guardian recently published an article saying “People won’t get ‘tired’ of social distancing – and it’s unscientific to suggest otherwise”. “Behavioural fatigue” the piece said, “has no basis in science”.
‘Behavioural fatigue’ became a hot topic because it was part of the UK Government’s justification for delaying the introduction of stricter public health measures. They quickly reversed this position and we’re now in the “empty streets” stage of infection control.
But it’s an important topic and is relevant to all of us as we try to maintain important behavioural changes that benefit othe ..read more
Mind Hacks
5y ago
A project I’ve been working on a for a long time has just launched:
The Choice Engine is an interactive essay about the psychology, neuroscience and philosophy of free will. To begin, follow and reply START
— ChoiceEngine (@ChoiceEngine) September 20, 2018
By talking to the @ChoiceEngine twitter-bot you can navigate an essay about choice, complexity and the nature of our minds. Along the way I argue why the most famous experiment on the neuroscience of free will doesn’t really tell us much, and discuss the wasp which made Darwin lose his faith in a benevolent god. And there’s this animated ..read more
Mind Hacks
5y ago
This thread started by Ekaterina Damer has prompted many recommendations from psychologists on twitter.
Can anyone recommend an (ideally brief) introductory paper or post or book explaining what makes for a good theory? For example, how to construct a good psychological theory, what are key things to consider?@psforscher @lakens @talyarkoni @chrisdc77 @tomstafford @kurtjgray
— Ekaterina Damer (@ekadamer) August 14, 2018
Here are most of the recommendations, with their recommender in brackets. I haven’t read these, but wanted to collate them in one place. Comments are open if you have your o ..read more
Mind Hacks
5y ago
Open science essentials in 2 minutes, part 4
Before a research article is published in a journal you can make it freely available for anyone to read. You could do this on your own website, but you can also do it on a preprint server, such as psyarxiv.com, where other researchers also share their preprints, which is supported by the OSF so will be around for a while, and which allows you to find others’ research easily.
Preprint servers have been used for decades in physics, but are now becoming more common across academia. Preprints allow rapid dissemination of your research, which is especial ..read more
Mind Hacks
5y ago
I have a guest post for the Research Digest, snappily titled ‘People who think their opinions are superior to others are most prone to overestimating their relevant knowledge and ignoring chances to learn more‘. The paper I review is about the so-called “belief superiority” effect, which is defined by thinking that your views are better than other people’s (i.e. not just that you are right, but that other people are wrong). The finding that people who have belief superiority are more likely to overestimate their knowledge is a twist on the famous Dunning-Kruger phenomenon, but showing that it ..read more