Category: Neurobiology/psychology
-
Why Can the Brain (And Not a Computer) Make Sense of the Liar Paradox?
Ordinary computing machines prohibit self-reference because it leads to logical inconsistencies and undecidability. In contrast, the human mind can understand self-referential statements without necessitating physically impossible brain states. Why can the brain make sense of self-reference? This paper addresses this question by defining the Strange Loop Model, which features causal feedback between two brain modules,…
-
“Nocebo” calls for vaccination side effects.
Most of the side effects that people experience after a COVID-19 vaccination can be blamed on the ‘nocebo’ effect. The nocebo effect is like the evil twin of the placebo effect — for example, it heightens pain if a person anticipates that something will hurt. Researchers reviewed 12 randomized clinical trials of COVID-19 vaccines and…
-
“active learning conditions” stimulate common processes that become part of the representations
There is an emerging consensus on the virtues of active learning methods for improving student performance. Such learning methods can be any instruction or technique that requires students to actively engage in the learning process, as compared to more traditional, passive ways of learning.One form of active learning is retrieval practice (RP), where the activity…
-
Binary “Space-Time decisions” accumulate
There was this great article in PNAS, recently: The geometry of decision-making in individuals and collectives. Luis M. Rocha posted a perfect summary on twitter: In biology, complex dynamics so often lead to binary (thresholded/critical) decision: “we predict that the brain repeatedly breaks multichoice decisions into a series of binary decisions in space–time”.
-
World Model – “Free Energy” Selections of Perception & Policy
During their lives humans constantly interact with the physical environment, as well as with themselves and others.World model learning and inference are crucial concepts in brain and cognitive science, as well as in AI and robotics. The outstanding challenges of building a generalpurpose AI needs world modelling and probabilistic inference, needed to realise a brain-like…
-
Learning: Brain vs xNN
The neural and cognitive architecture for learning from a small sample is a nice article I would like to recommend. It highlights how human learners avoid generalization issues found in machine learning, proposes a general model explaining how the brain may simplify complex problems. Synergy between cognitive functions and reinforcement learning allows simplification.Recurrent loops between…
-
Can we get human nature right?
For years, I have the pleasure to follow the great blog site of Deric Brownd. I would like to share with you this post on the recent perspective on ‘Can we get human nature right?‘. Iris Berent does an interesting Perspective artice in PNAS that considers the strong intuitions that laypeople hold about human nature. People’s attitudes…
Surtil : 