Why Are Yawns Contagious?

fakescience:

Why Are Yawns Contagious?



Contrary to popular belief it has very little to do with carbon-dioxide or oxygen, but everything with hitherto mysterious mirror neurons that seem to be flow enablers I bet. While their function of inducing copied behaviour has been investigated over a range of human behaviours and activities, including such shared experiences as smiling, body-language and learning, I predict that the proof will be known as soon as the researchers get bored with the testing rest.

If research proves me right it will also provide unequivocal proof that our nature provide for shared enthused actively, and uses the same method to inform our peers of experiences that are not worthy of mutual pursuit.

The cause of genius.

In his article “How Does Creative Genius Manifest?”, Francis Cholle over at Psychology Today promotes the cause of genius as within reach of every man in the street by relinquishing our perception of control. Cholle explains: 

 … it is probably a shocking statement to most but what’s in our mind is known to us and nothing new lives there… What’s in our unconsciousmind on the contrary is unknown to us and therefore new to us. The way to get to it consists in disengaging from our conscious mind by giving up the control of reason and logic over any situation.

EnlightenmentBy letting go of conscious control of reason and logic the article suggest the creative genius of our unconscious mind will manifest. 

Since creative genius defies logic by definition it would seem as if reason should be absent too, but in view of recent proof that sanity and reason is sin qua non I’d like to think that genius lies in in something bigger than the then mind, conscious or not.

I’d like to think that just like creativity, genius abide in a collective ability. One that defies sense, but defines sensibility in terms of our shared consciousness.

Such a notion would support the thin veil we see in sanity, would give reason to the preponderance of possibility in genius throughout history, explain the presence and function of mirror neurons in our brain, imbue unconditional intention with meaning, make a sense of altruism and support recent scientific proof that instinct engender survival of the species above the individual.

Reason abound. me thinks.

sciencecenter: Amnesic cellist forgets everything, still remembers how to play his own instrument This is a pretty incredible story. In 2005, a 62-year-old man was diagnosed with herpes encephalitis, an infection of the brain which destroyed his medial temporal lobes, and with them his explicit memory. He was left with retrograde amnesia (forgetting events in the past) as well as anteretrograde amnesia (losing the ability to form new memories). The really fascinating part comes next, though: Doctors made their discovery when they tested PM’s ability to recall musical information and found he could identify the scales, rhythms and intervals of pieces they played him. The man went on to score normally on a standard test for musical memory. But it was later tests that surprised doctors most, when the cellist showed he could learn new pieces of music, even though he failed to remember simple information, such as the layout of his flat, who his doctors were and what medicines he should take. The scientists conclude that musical memory must be stored elsewhere in the brain. This explanation is boosted by cases of Alzheimer’s- or stroke-induced memory loss in which patients could still recall musical memories.
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sciencecenter:

Amnesic cellist forgets everything, still remembers how to play his own instrument

This is a pretty incredible story. In 2005, a 62-year-old man was diagnosed with herpes encephalitis, an infection of the brain which destroyed his medial temporal lobes, and with them his explicit memory. He was left with retrograde amnesia (forgetting events in the past) as well as anteretrograde amnesia (losing the ability to form new memories). The really fascinating part comes next, though:

Doctors made their discovery when they tested PM’s ability to recall musical information and found he could identify the scales, rhythms and intervals of pieces they played him. The man went on to score normally on a standard test for musical memory.

But it was later tests that surprised doctors most, when the cellist showed he could learn new pieces of music, even though he failed to remember simple information, such as the layout of his flat, who his doctors were and what medicines he should take.

The scientists conclude that musical memory must be stored elsewhere in the brain. This explanation is boosted by cases of Alzheimer’s- or stroke-induced memory loss in which patients could still recall musical memories.

A recent PLoS paper presents evidence that children as young as 15 months old may have a rudimentary sense of fairness. Adults regularly appear to include fairness measures when making decisions. You might not believe it’s true, but there’s proof: Neuroimaging highlights increased activity in the reward regions of our brains when we consider fair offers and increased activity in the amygdala when we’re faced with unfair options. To be able to weigh fairness and unfairness, we have to have a sense of of the psychological and social state of other. Such “other-regarding” behavior is believed to be a human tendency, although it remains to be confirmed whether it is specifically a human trait.

New research indicates we’re wired for fairness and cooperation, but we mature into moral ambiguity (via curiositycounts)

And for the opposite response, go here

(via curiositycounts)

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