Neuroscience
Anger Works, But Not In Competitive Negotiations
November 3, 2015
The Rationality of Rage. NEW YORK TIMES. Expressing anger is known to be a useful tool in negotiations. Indeed, in the past few years, researchers have been learning more about when and how to deploy anger productively. Consider a forthcoming paper in the November issue of the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. Researchers tested the effectiveness of expressing anger in three types of negotiations: those that are chiefly cooperative (starting a business with a partner), chiefly competitive...
November 3, 2015
The Rationality of Rage. NEW YORK TIMES. Expressing anger is known to be a useful tool in negotiations. Indeed, in the past few years, researchers have been learning more about when and how to deploy anger productively. Consider a forthcoming paper in the November issue of the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. Researchers tested the effectiveness of expressing anger in three types of negotiations: those that are chiefly cooperative (starting a business with a partner), chiefly competitive...
How Improving Decision-Making and Mindfulness Can Improve Legal Ethics and Professionalism
October 31, 2015
Lawyers who behave unethically and unprofessionally do so for various reasons, ranging from intention to carelessness. Lawyer misconduct can also result from decision-making flaws. Psychologist Chip Heath and his brother Dan Heath, in their best-selling book, Decisive: How to Make Better Decisions in Life and Work, suggest a process to improve people’s decision-making. They introduce the acronym WRAP as the mnemonic for these decision-making heuristics: (1) Widen your options, (2) Reality-test...
October 31, 2015
Lawyers who behave unethically and unprofessionally do so for various reasons, ranging from intention to carelessness. Lawyer misconduct can also result from decision-making flaws. Psychologist Chip Heath and his brother Dan Heath, in their best-selling book, Decisive: How to Make Better Decisions in Life and Work, suggest a process to improve people’s decision-making. They introduce the acronym WRAP as the mnemonic for these decision-making heuristics: (1) Widen your options, (2) Reality-test...
Sandrine Thuret: You Can Grow New Brain Cells. Here’s How
October 18, 2015
Can we, as adults, grow new neurons? Neuroscientist Sandrine Thuret says that we can, and she offers research and practical advice on how we can help our brains better perform neurogenesis—improving mood, increasing memory formation and preventing the decline associated with aging along the way.
October 18, 2015
Can we, as adults, grow new neurons? Neuroscientist Sandrine Thuret says that we can, and she offers research and practical advice on how we can help our brains better perform neurogenesis—improving mood, increasing memory formation and preventing the decline associated with aging along the way.
The Brain on PBS Beginning Oct. 14.
October 14, 2015
The Brain, hosted by David Eagleman, to air on PBS beginning Oct. 14. - See more at: http://kolber.typepad.com/ethics_law_blog/2015/10/the-brain-on-pbs.html#sthash.WHsNg5kQ.dpuf Neuroscientist David Eagleman explores the wonders of the human brain in an epic series that reveals the ultimate story of us, why we feel and think the things we do.
October 14, 2015
The Brain, hosted by David Eagleman, to air on PBS beginning Oct. 14. - See more at: http://kolber.typepad.com/ethics_law_blog/2015/10/the-brain-on-pbs.html#sthash.WHsNg5kQ.dpuf Neuroscientist David Eagleman explores the wonders of the human brain in an epic series that reveals the ultimate story of us, why we feel and think the things we do.
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...
Brain Imaging Research is Often Wrong
September 4, 2015
When researchers conduct brain imaging, they collect data from 200,000 little spots in the brain, which creates a lot of leeway for false positives, bias, and false negatives. If researchers do not do the proper corrections—to address the fact that they are doing a statistical test in each of those places—it is very easy to find a highly significant result that is not actually real. A few years ago, a group of researchers tried to illustrate this problem by putting a dead salmon in an MRI scanner....
September 4, 2015
When researchers conduct brain imaging, they collect data from 200,000 little spots in the brain, which creates a lot of leeway for false positives, bias, and false negatives. If researchers do not do the proper corrections—to address the fact that they are doing a statistical test in each of those places—it is very easy to find a highly significant result that is not actually real. A few years ago, a group of researchers tried to illustrate this problem by putting a dead salmon in an MRI scanner....
Arrested Memory – ‘Justice Is Mind’
September 3, 2015
In the 2013 feature film Justice Is Mind, a defendant is put on trial for an alleged double murder he does not remember committing. The evidence? His own memory obtained from a new MRI procedure called fvMRI (functional video magnetic resonance imaging). It may be science fiction today, but it's looking more and more likely that it will be science fact tomorrow. The movie focuses on 'thought identification' using advanced fMRI techniques which are currently being developed at Carnegie Mellon University....
September 3, 2015
In the 2013 feature film Justice Is Mind, a defendant is put on trial for an alleged double murder he does not remember committing. The evidence? His own memory obtained from a new MRI procedure called fvMRI (functional video magnetic resonance imaging). It may be science fiction today, but it's looking more and more likely that it will be science fact tomorrow. The movie focuses on 'thought identification' using advanced fMRI techniques which are currently being developed at Carnegie Mellon University....
The Neuroscience of Being a Selfish Jerk
September 2, 2015
People high in Machiavellianism are more likely to agree with statements such as, “It is wise to flatter important people” and “The best way to handle people is to tell them what they want to hear.” A team of Hungarian researchers has scanned the brains of high scorers on Machiavellianism while the test subjects played a simple game of trust. While all participants punished unfair play, the Machiavellians, unlike the nonMachiavellians, failed to respond in kind to fair returns or investments...
September 2, 2015
People high in Machiavellianism are more likely to agree with statements such as, “It is wise to flatter important people” and “The best way to handle people is to tell them what they want to hear.” A team of Hungarian researchers has scanned the brains of high scorers on Machiavellianism while the test subjects played a simple game of trust. While all participants punished unfair play, the Machiavellians, unlike the nonMachiavellians, failed to respond in kind to fair returns or investments...
Does Watching a Film Cliffhanger Help Us Understand the Brain?
September 1, 2015
"Narratives exert a powerful influence on human thoughts, emotions and behavior and can be particularly important in security contexts," DARPA researchers explained in a paper published in the Journal of Neuroscience Methods earlier this year. They added that "in conflict resolution and counterterrorism scenarios, detecting the neural response underlying empathy induced by stories is of critical importance." This is where the work on the Hitchcock movies comes in. Researchers at the Georgia...
September 1, 2015
"Narratives exert a powerful influence on human thoughts, emotions and behavior and can be particularly important in security contexts," DARPA researchers explained in a paper published in the Journal of Neuroscience Methods earlier this year. They added that "in conflict resolution and counterterrorism scenarios, detecting the neural response underlying empathy induced by stories is of critical importance." This is where the work on the Hitchcock movies comes in. Researchers at the Georgia...
Don’t Forget
August 31, 2015
Sleep can facilitate memory retention; however, whether it does so by promoting memory consolidation or by suppressing the mechanisms that drive forgetting is unclear. Davis and colleagues now show that, in Drosophila melanogaster, sleep reduces the activity of particular sets of dopamine neurons that drive forgetting. Hat tip to ABA Behavioral & Neuroscience Law Committee
August 31, 2015
Sleep can facilitate memory retention; however, whether it does so by promoting memory consolidation or by suppressing the mechanisms that drive forgetting is unclear. Davis and colleagues now show that, in Drosophila melanogaster, sleep reduces the activity of particular sets of dopamine neurons that drive forgetting. Hat tip to ABA Behavioral & Neuroscience Law Committee
