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Cognitive
Using Brain Imaging to Reevaluate Three Famous Cases
September 24, 2015
It's 50 years since the American neurologist Norman Geschwind published his hugely influential Disconnexion Syndromes in Animals and Man, in which he argued that many brain disorders and injuries could best be understood in terms of the damage incurred to the white-matter pathways connecting different areas of the brain. To mark this anniversary, an international team of researchers has used modern brain imaging techniques to reveal, in an open-access article for Cerebral Cortex, the likely damage...
September 24, 2015
It's 50 years since the American neurologist Norman Geschwind published his hugely influential Disconnexion Syndromes in Animals and Man, in which he argued that many brain disorders and injuries could best be understood in terms of the damage incurred to the white-matter pathways connecting different areas of the brain. To mark this anniversary, an international team of researchers has used modern brain imaging techniques to reveal, in an open-access article for Cerebral Cortex, the likely damage...
Good Anger
September 24, 2015
An article in the New York Times, The Rationality of Rage, summarizes the findings of several studies about when expressing anger can be productive. Despite the catchy title of the article, expressing rage generally isn’t helpful. But expressing anger can be useful in some situations. The article distinguishes three types of negotiations – primarily cooperative (e.g., starting a business), primarily competitive (e.g., dissolving a business), and a mixture (e.g., selling a business to a buyer)....
September 24, 2015
An article in the New York Times, The Rationality of Rage, summarizes the findings of several studies about when expressing anger can be productive. Despite the catchy title of the article, expressing rage generally isn’t helpful. But expressing anger can be useful in some situations. The article distinguishes three types of negotiations – primarily cooperative (e.g., starting a business), primarily competitive (e.g., dissolving a business), and a mixture (e.g., selling a business to a buyer)....
What Makes Lawyers Happy? – And How Can You Help?
September 22, 2015
Money can’t buy me love. – Paul McCartney As a corollary to psychologist McCartney’s insight, money can’t...
September 22, 2015
Money can’t buy me love. – Paul McCartney As a corollary to psychologist McCartney’s insight, money can’t...
Do You Have Algorithm Aversion?
September 19, 2015
If you’re struggling to accept the idea that using an algorithm is a good idea, consider whether these logical fallacies might be tripping you up. Have you ever heard of “algorithm aversion?” Researchers describe it as being when people trust their own conclusions over the results of an algorithm, even when the algorithm is shown to perform better. You see this in action when doctors scoff at online symptom checkers or lawyers hesitate to use predictive coding. So, what drives this aversion?...
September 19, 2015
If you’re struggling to accept the idea that using an algorithm is a good idea, consider whether these logical fallacies might be tripping you up. Have you ever heard of “algorithm aversion?” Researchers describe it as being when people trust their own conclusions over the results of an algorithm, even when the algorithm is shown to perform better. You see this in action when doctors scoff at online symptom checkers or lawyers hesitate to use predictive coding. So, what drives this aversion?...
What About Watson? Cognitive Technology in the Law Office of the Future
September 13, 2015
IBM’s Watson may have won Jeopardy in 2011, but artificial intelligence has taken a bit longer to catch on in the legal world. IBM, however, believes that Watson and similar technologies can revolutionize the legal industry. Kyla Moran, a member of the IBM Watson Group, talked with Ginevra Saylor, national director of knowledge management at Dentons Canada, at ILTACON 2015 about how cognitive technology will drive transformation of society as we know it. Moran told the full room at Caesar’s...
September 13, 2015
IBM’s Watson may have won Jeopardy in 2011, but artificial intelligence has taken a bit longer to catch on in the legal world. IBM, however, believes that Watson and similar technologies can revolutionize the legal industry. Kyla Moran, a member of the IBM Watson Group, talked with Ginevra Saylor, national director of knowledge management at Dentons Canada, at ILTACON 2015 about how cognitive technology will drive transformation of society as we know it. Moran told the full room at Caesar’s...
The Emotions That Make Us More Creative
September 10, 2015
At the end of the day, the ability to broaden attention and the ability to narrow attention are both key contributors to creativity. A recent neuroscience study led by Roger Beaty (and which I was a collaborator on) suggests that creative people have greater connections between two areas of the brain that are typically at odds: the brain network of regions associated with focus and attentional control, and the brain network of regions associated with imagination and spontaneity. Indeed, the entire...
September 10, 2015
At the end of the day, the ability to broaden attention and the ability to narrow attention are both key contributors to creativity. A recent neuroscience study led by Roger Beaty (and which I was a collaborator on) suggests that creative people have greater connections between two areas of the brain that are typically at odds: the brain network of regions associated with focus and attentional control, and the brain network of regions associated with imagination and spontaneity. Indeed, the entire...
The Future Of Law And Technology
September 9, 2015
DL: How far do you think we can go in automating the work of lawyers and when are we going to reach that point? DP: That’s...
September 9, 2015
DL: How far do you think we can go in automating the work of lawyers and when are we going to reach that point? DP: That’s...
How To Read Someone’s Emotions With 90% Accuracy
September 8, 2015
They found that negative emotions have a ‘neural signature’ which a computer could learn. Dr Luke Chang, who led the study, said: “This means that brain imaging has the potential to accurately uncover how someone is feeling without knowing anything about them other than their brain activity. This has enormous implications for improving our understanding of how emotions are generated and regulated, which have been notoriously difficult to define and measure. In addition, these new types...
September 8, 2015
They found that negative emotions have a ‘neural signature’ which a computer could learn. Dr Luke Chang, who led the study, said: “This means that brain imaging has the potential to accurately uncover how someone is feeling without knowing anything about them other than their brain activity. This has enormous implications for improving our understanding of how emotions are generated and regulated, which have been notoriously difficult to define and measure. In addition, these new types...
Predicting Major Geopolitical Events
September 7, 2015
The weekend of July 30, a group of intellectual heavyweights met at a beautiful vineyard in California's Napa Valley. Their agenda was modest: learn how to predict the future. The "class," organized by Edge, was led by Philip Tetlock, a University of Pennsylvania psychologist who has made the study of prediction his life's work. For the past several years, Tetlock and his colleagues have been running a project supported by the US intelligence community. Their goal is to find ways to accurately...
September 7, 2015
The weekend of July 30, a group of intellectual heavyweights met at a beautiful vineyard in California's Napa Valley. Their agenda was modest: learn how to predict the future. The "class," organized by Edge, was led by Philip Tetlock, a University of Pennsylvania psychologist who has made the study of prediction his life's work. For the past several years, Tetlock and his colleagues have been running a project supported by the US intelligence community. Their goal is to find ways to accurately...
IBM Watson Personality Insights From Writing
September 5, 2015
The IBM Watson Personality Insights service uses linguistic analytics to extract a spectrum of cognitive and social characteristics from the text data that a person generates through blogs, tweets, forum posts, and more.
September 5, 2015
The IBM Watson Personality Insights service uses linguistic analytics to extract a spectrum of cognitive and social characteristics from the text data that a person generates through blogs, tweets, forum posts, and more.
