4.13.2008

Left/Right Brain, ISPI, Working Memory, Newspapers, & Cognitive Dissonance


Split brain behavioral experiments

To reduce the severity of his seizures, Joe had the bridge between his left and right cerebral hemisphers (the corpus callosum) severed. As a result, his left and right brains no longer communicate through that pathway.

Let Computers Compute. It's the Age of the Right Brain. - New York Times
Although popularized in the 1980s by the artist Betty Edwards in her book "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain," the right-brain-left-brain dichotomy originated with the research of the American biologist Roger W. Sperry in the 1960s.

HPT Practitioner Podcast contest for ISPI - Guy Wallace
Guy Wallace has created 21 Video Podcasts for an "HPT Practitioner Podcast" contest for ISPI. Hopefully many others will also create some and add them to Google or YouTube and then create a post at ISPI's "HPT Connections"(free to anyone - dues paying members or not) and embed the code to add them to this new Social Network site. The "group page" for these Podcasts with info about the contest and how anyone can participate is here. The Podcasts are available on Google Video too. Just search under "HPT Practitioner Podcast." Guy also has a couple of posts about the ISPI speakers: Marc Rosenberg and Don Tosti.

Working Memory Has Limited 'Slots' - Science Daily
The evidence shows that working memory acts like a high-resolution camera, retaining three or four features in high detail. Those features allow the brain to link successive images together. However, while most digital cameras allow the user to choose a lower resolution and therefore store more images, the resolution of working memory appears to be constant for a given individual.

OUT OF PRINT - The New Yorker
The rise of the Internet, which has made the daily newspaper look slow and unresponsive; the advent of Craigslist, which is wiping out classified advertising -- have created a palpable sense of doom. Independent, publicly traded American newspapers have lost forty-two per cent of their market value in the past three years. Traditional media just need to realize that the online world isn't the enemy. In fact, it's the thing that will save them, if they fully embrace it.

No Web site spends anything remotely like what the best newspapers do on reporting. Even after the latest round of new cutbacks and buyouts are carried out, the Times will retain a core of more than twelve hundred newsroom employees, or approximately fifty times as many as the Huffington Post. The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times maintain between eight hundred and nine hundred editorial employees each. The Times' Baghdad bureau alone costs around three million dollars a year to maintain. And while the Huffington Post shares the benefit of these investments, it shoulders none of the costs. Thus, bloggers merely "recycle and chew on the news."

And Behind Door No. 1, a Fatal Flaw - New York Times
The economist, M. Keith Chen, has challenged research into cognitive dissonance - the ability of people to rationalize their choices.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Good Job! :)