“Both sets of studies confirm the importance of evidence accumulated after a decision has been made, but diverge on the source of this evidence. The Cambridge group suggests that an incoming stream of evidence is continually accumulated both before and after a choice has been made. By contrast, the Trinity College group suggests that top-down signals – information that feeds back to influence earlier stages of processing – provide an additional input to enable changes of mind.”
Category: ideas
How Did So Many Children Become Convinced They Remembered Abuse That Never Actually Occurred?
Remember the Satanic-ritual-abuse-in-day-care panic of the 1980s and ’90s? Here’s a look at how the false memories of the young victims-that-weren’t got implanted and took hold – and how some of them handled it when, years later, they came to understand that what they thought they remembered hadn’t really happened.
The Simple Life Versus A Complicated Life – Which Is Preferable?
“Through much of human history, frugal simplicity was not a choice but a necessity – and since necessary, it was also deemed a moral virtue. But with the advent of industrial capitalism and a consumer society, a system arose that was committed to relentless growth, and with it grew a population (aka ‘the market’) that was enabled and encouraged to buy lots of stuff that, by traditional standards, was surplus to requirements. As a result, there’s a disconnect between the traditional values we have inherited and the consumerist imperatives instilled in us by contemporary culture.”
This Whole Mindfulness Thing – Is It Overrated?
“The idea that we should be constantly policing our thoughts away from the past, the future, the imagination or the abstract and back to whatever is happening right now has gained traction with spiritual leaders and investment bankers, armchair philosophers and government bureaucrats and human resources departments. So does the moment really deserve its many accolades?”
The Revenge Of The Video Store
No, not everything is available on streaming (as a matter of fact, most things are not). The few indie video/DVD/Blu-Ray stores that survived the 2000s are coming back strong. “Saving the video is sort of cultural stewardship. …If you want to see stuff from 15, 20, 30 years ago, you have to do deep detective work if it’s not a famous movie.”
How Instagram Became The Perfect Breeding Ground For Conspiracy Theories
Yikes. The app’s technical details make it ripe for exploitation by those into “post-truth” memes: “Disinformation that would quickly be debunked on other networks thrives on Instagram, especially since it hasn’t been worth mainstream media organizations’ effort to devote significant time or money to the platform.”
Evidence That Our Brains Grow And Change With New Experiences (So Challenge Yourself!)
When we have new experiences and encounter unfamiliar ideas, clusters of neurons are formed and existing clusters connected with previously learned behaviors are strengthened. Through the right kind of training, our brains can adapt to perform at higher levels than many of us tend to think—pushing us past what we believe our “natural abilities” to be.
We’re Hurtling Towards A Post-Job Future (Because There Won’t Be Any) What Might That Look Like?
“What would society and civilisation be like if we didn’t have to ‘earn’ a living – if leisure was not our choice but our lot? Would we hang out at the local Starbucks, laptops open? Or volunteer to teach children in less-developed places, such as Mississippi? Or smoke weed and watch reality TV all day? I’m not proposing a fancy thought experiment here. By now these are practical questions because there aren’t enough jobs.”
Reconstructing The Soundscape Of 18th-Century Paris
“Archaeologist of sound” Mylène Pardoen: “The houses were very tall, so the sound stayed. It … sound remained there and seemed thicker than it would today. It was not louder, nor was it less loud. It was denser. There were more sounds that collided with one another.” (includes audio)
That Running Conversation You Have With Yourself Inside Your Head? It’s Called “Inner Speech” And We’re Learning About It
“I think it was assumed that inner speech was just this kind of monologue, the output of a solitary voice chattering away in your head. And we now think there are a few main kinds of inner speech. Inner speech varies according to how compressed it is, how condensed. We think inner speech varies according to how much it’s like a conversation between different points of view. We’re starting to tease apart these different qualities. And that fits with the idea that inner speech has a lot of different functions. It has a role in motivation, it has a role in emotional expression, it probably has a role in understanding our selves as selves.”