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Neuroscientist traces roots of his drug addiction
CTV News: Mark Lewis spent 15 years hooked on just about any drug you can think of: alcohol, LSD, cocaine, heroin, opium, prescription painkillers. Today, he is a neuroscientist and professor of applied psychology at the University of Toronto, who had just written a new memoir, entitled "Memoirs of an Addicted Brain." But this is no drug addict tell-all. Instead, Lewis details honestly his life as an addict, while drawing on his knowledge of neuroscience and the brain's workings to try to explain it. Lewis says he wanted to explain why brains get addicted and says it seemed only natural to use his own experience to do so.
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Music Training Improves Verbal Intelligence in Children
Forbes: A new study to be published in the journal Psychological Science shows a simple, yet extraordinarily effective way to improve the verbal intelligence of 4-6 year olds: train them using music. The study focused on 48 4-6 year olds who were divided into two groups. One group was taught the basic fundamentals of music, including pitch, rhythm, melody and other concepts. The other group was taught visual art training in the basics such as shapes, colors, lines, and other concepts. The two groups were taught these lessons twice a day, for one hour session apiece, over the course of 20 days.
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A Moral Gene?
Scientific American: Morality is often considered to be the domain of philosophers, not biologists. But scientists have often wondered what role our genomes play in directing our moral compass. Today, a paper was published in the open access journal PLoS One which found moral decision making was influenced by different forms of a single gene. Picture yourself standing at branching train tracks with a unstoppable train barreling towards you. On one side, an evil villain has tied five people, while on the other, he has tied only one. You’ve got the switch in your hands which chooses which track the train goes down.
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Reading faces an imperfect science
The Vancouver Sun: Millions of dollars may be being misspent on threat-detection methods that rely on facial expression recognition, according to a report this month by a noted Canadian researcher. In the October issue of the journal Current Directions in Psychological Science, Lisa Feldman Barrett rebuts the notion of there being six to 10 biologically basic emotions that are encoded - and easily interpreted - on people's faces.
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“The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined” by Steven Pinker
CBS News: Jeff Glor: What inspired you to write the book? Steven Pinker: I believe there is such a thing as human nature--that the mind is not a blank slate, and that we don't get all our emotions and drives from culture, parents, and socialization. But the very idea of human nature raises a fear in many people: if we're "killer apes" with "genes for aggression" and a "violent brain," would that mean that we are doomed to perpetual war and mayhem, and shouldn't even bother trying to make the world a better place? But I knew that this fear made no sense for two reasons.
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What is the key to achieving greatness?
Yahoo Singapore: What makes one great? Is it intelligence alone or does it also include sustained practice? Working memory capacity - closely related to general intelligence - may sometimes be the deciding factor between good and great, according to a Michigan State University study. Practice is equally important - if not more - than intelligence in making people stand out, associate professor in psychology Zach Hambrick said. Imagine where Bill Gates would be if he hadn't honed his programming skills, but then Hambrick disagrees with the notion that intelligence plays no role in determining excellence, reports the journal Current Directions in Psychological Science.
