Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Cognitive Neuroscience Links 08/18/2009

  • An overview of neuroethics and neurolaw that covers a lot of ground, from Phineas Gage to comas. Ways that the brain controls behaviour, issues of responsibility and accountability in the legal system, decision making, recidivism and rehabilitation, predicting violence, the hype and reality of fMRI lie detectors and the implicit association test (IAT), and more. Mentions a clinical trial that’s testing neurofeedback for controlling cravings.

    tags: neurolaw, neuroethics, video, cogsci

  • What makes people behave honestly when confronted with opportunities for dishonest gain? Research on the interplay between controlled and automatic processes in decision making suggests 2 hypotheses: According to the “Will” hypothesis, honesty results from the active resistance of temptation, comparable to the controlled cognitive processes that enable the delay of reward. According to the “Grace” hypothesis, honesty results from the absence of temptation, consistent with research emphasizing the determination of behavior by the presence or absence of automatic processes. (Deric Bownds' MindBlog) Abstract: http://is.gd/2mKtF

    tags: will, morality, neuroethics, cogsci



  • Facial expressions, Charles Darwin argued in The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, are a universal window into emotion. But new research challenges that notion, showing that east Asian people struggle to recognise facial expressions that western Caucasians attribute to fear and disgust. By focusing on eyes and brows, Asians miss subtle cues conveyed via the mouth. (13 August 2009 - New Scientist)

    tags: facial-expressions, universal, innate, emotion, cogsci


Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

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