Scientist: Humans Can See Into Future

Humans can see into the future, says a cognitive scientist.

It’s nothing like the alleged predictive powers of Nostradamus, but we do get a glimpse of events one-tenth of a second before they occur.

And the mechanism behind that can also explain why we are tricked by optical illusions.

By Jeanna Bryner (FOX News)

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Political views ‘all in the mind’

Scientists studying US voters say our political views may be an integral part of our physiological makeup.

Their research, published in the journal Science, indicates that people who are sensitive to fear or threat are likely to support a right wing agenda.

Those who perceived less danger in a series of images and sounds were more inclined to support liberal policies.

The authors believe their findings may help to explain why voters’ minds are so hard to change.

By Matt McGrath (BBC News)

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Repeated Virtual Reality Distraction Reduces Pain Perception

Distraction through virtual-reality technology was found to reduce pain perceptions after repeated exposures in a University of Maryland study published in The Journal of Pain. The test subjects did not, as expected, adjust their pain perceptions or become habituated to the stimulation over time.

By Medical News Today

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Two dimensions of mind perception

Scientists want to figure out how individuals can tell whether someone or something else has a mental life. Controversial studies have addressed whether chimpanzees and children with autism are capable of making such an inference about others.

However, investigators shouldn’t assume that organisms perceive another’s mind as a single entity, assert psychologist Heather M. Gray of Harvard University and her colleagues. Instead, people attribute to others two distinct dimensions of mental activity, Gray’s team reports in the Feb. 2 Science.

By Science News (Bnet)

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Multiple Dimensions Shape Our Perception Of Mind, Harvard Study Suggests

Through an online survey of more than 2,000 people, psychologists at Harvard University have found that we perceive the minds of others along two distinct dimensions: agency, an individual’s ability for self-control, morality and planning; and experience, the capacity to feel sensations such as hunger, fear and pain.

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Study: Happy Mind Equals Healthier Heart

Study Says Patients With a More Positive Outlook Fared Better When Recovering From Heart Ailments

Conventional wisdom and old wives’ tales tout the benefits of a positive attitude, but now Duke University researchers believe a cheerier outlook on life actually may help save lives.

By John McKenzie (ABC World News)

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Music does indeed improve the mind

A number of studies over the years have reported positive associations between music experience and increased abilities in non-musical (e.g., linguistic, mathematical, and spatial) domains in children. Now a new study, published this week in the Journal Psychology of Music, report that children exposed to a multi-year programme of music tuition involving training in increasingly complex rhythmic, tonal, and practical skills display superior cognitive performance in reading skills compared with their non-musically trained peers.

By Gizmag

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Why Dreams Mean Less Than We Think

Most people dream enthusiastically at night, their dreams seemingly occupying hours, even though most last only a few minutes. Most people also read great meaning into their nocturnal visions. In fact, according to a new sudy in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, the vast majority of people in three very different countries — India, South Korea and the United States — believe that their dreams reveal meaningful hidden truths.

By John Cloud (Time Magazine)

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The Mystery of Consciousness

It shouldn’t be surprising that research on consciousness is alternately exhilarating and disturbing. No other topic is like it. As René Descartes noted, our own consciousness is the most indubitable thing there is.

By Steven Pinker (Time Magazine)

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Mind May Affect Machines

For 26 years, strange conversations have been taking place in a basement lab at Princeton University.

No one can hear them, but they can see their apparent effect: balls that go in certain directions on command, water fountains that seem to rise higher with a wish and drums that quicken their beat.

Yet no one hears the conversations because they occur between the minds of experimenters and the machines they will to action.

Wired Website

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Sniffing activates the mind’s nose – Whiffs of Perception

A rose by any other name smells as sweet, even when you only conjure up its fragrance in your mind. That’s because people use their noses to sniff imaginary as well as real aromas, and the mere act of sniffing scentless air kick-starts odor perception, a new study finds.

By B. Bower (Bnet)

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