Month: May 2011

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Tweets for 2011-05-31

Had forgot that the full text of my article in Prospect about confabulation is here http://idiolect.org.uk/notes/?p=894 #

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Tweets for 2011-05-30

RT @mariapage: Interesting: Futuristic Strobe Eyewear May Improve Your Game – http://t.co/OsL2c90” #

misc

Searching for the timed ‘off’ switch

Post author By tom
Post date May 30, 2011
1 Comment on Searching for the timed ‘off’ switch

I want a button box I can put between the mains and electric devices in my house. Hitting the button lets the electricity flow, turning the device on, and then after a delay the device turns off, freeing me from having think about turning lights etc off all the time. Why doesn’t this exist already?

Link: the technology of our wider wiser selves

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Tweets for 2011-05-29

Congratulations – well deserved! RT @mariapage I got the scholarship. It's official. Too many good things happening lately!!!! #

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Tweets for 2011-05-28

Oh look, uk crowd funding (just for the arts though) http://t.co/aeuDr0q @mikedewar @jamesb #
A man just gave me a pound before going home to torrent my book. That man is a gentleman! #

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Tweets for 2011-05-27

London calling #
RT @StoryingShef: Storytelling reveals meaning without committing the error of defining it. ~H. Arendt. #

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Tweets for 2011-05-26

Advertising space available for purchase in lecture halls at Aston University http://bit.ly/kvZqpC "Reach our students today!" #
Great interview by @researchdigest in @psychmag with David Halpern, head of govt's "Behavioural Insight Team" http://ow.ly/53xFL #

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Tweets for 2011-05-25

Classic paper: Can a Fly Ride a Bicycle? Wolf et al, 1992 http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/337/1281/261.short #

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Tweets for 2011-05-24

Open access journal goodness: Frontiers in Cognitive Science http://www.frontiersin.org/cognitive_science #
Get a bursary to come and study of one of our masters courses here at Sheffield Psychology Department http://bit.ly/mxrGnX #

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Tweets for 2011-05-21

Great Jon Ronson article on psychopathy in the guardian http://t.co/lyIovkU #
Boggled by http://t.co/uNbcNhQ the hoax which the dupes cannot, by definition, believe is a hoax #

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Tweets for 2011-05-20

Absolutely stoked to be hosting dataist @mikedewar this week. Tonight : exploring Sheffield town #

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Tweets for 2011-05-18

If anyone needs a databank of spurious evolutionary thinking and politically motivated science, ask Satoshi Kanawawa http://bit.ly/10WE73 #

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Tweets for 2011-05-17

One good thing about submitting to a journal with a 1200 Euro publication fee – I'm going to feel good whether its accepted or rejected! #

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Tweets for 2011-05-15

The Unsuggester: analyses 50m books, comes back with the books read by the people who don't read the books you do http://bit.ly/C2ccF #
…reveals that the godly don't read "A Game of Thrones", for example. Link via @oliverburkeman 's book Help! #
People who read the Old Man and the Sea unlikely to read Mind Hacks. Hmmm.. http://www.librarything.com/unsuggester/8387 #

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Tweets for 2011-05-13

Vodka company sponsors 'facebook Russian roulette' – if unlucky, you can lose your virtual life http://t.co/CfIhw3B #
Today I am giving a talk in York : "Infering cognitive architectures from high-resolution behavioural data" http://bit.ly/gtSosu #
We have just won funding which will allow me to hire an RA for a year (whoop!), more soon #
Amen @PsychScientists Working out a system's job description really should be the first thing you do in any task analysis #
The questions you never thought to ask, science does for you "Is there a morphine store in the brain of the camel?" http://bit.ly/kDUZVa #
Just spoke to the station manager at Sheffield train station – they're planning 150 new cycle parking places. Great! #
It costs little to watch, and little more if you happen to get caught up in the action #

Me science

One suggestion you are researching a trendy topic

Post author By tom
Post date May 13, 2011
No Comments on One suggestion you are researching a trendy topic

This is a plot of the number of citations turned up by a simple “Web of Knowledge” search for papers containing the words “dopamine” and “reinforcement learning”, against year of publication. The rise, dating from approximately the time of publication of the first computational theory of phasic dopamine function, is rapid. There are, as far as I know, two computational theories of phasic dopamine function. One from Schultz, Dayan and Montague (1997) and one from our team here in Sheffield (Redgrave and Gurney, 2006)

Refs

Schultz, W., Dayan, P., & Montague, P. R. (1997). A neural substrate of prediction and reward. Science, 275, 1593-1599.

Redgrave, P., & Gurney, K. (2006). The short-latency dopamine signal: a role in discovering novel actions? Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 7(12), 967-75.

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Tweets for 2011-05-12

Rap is the perfect genre for this – like most rap I can't tell if they take themselves seriously or are sick with irony http://bit.ly/k27VCn #
i heart windows grep http://www.wingrep.com/ #

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Tweets for 2011-05-11

There is a very informed discussion about political ideologies and human nature on my blog http://idiolect.org.uk/notes/?p=1467 #
Without, i should say, any contribution from me! #
.@jamesb here's that simon armitage poem I mentioned last night http://idiolect.org.uk/notes/?p=344 #

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Tweets for 2011-05-10

Thursday: "a new and suprising look at physics and theology" http://www.sheffield.ac.uk/arts-science Hugh Pyper is brilliant, recommend #
This will be ace: "Neuroscience and Neuromania" Robin Dunbar and Ray Tallis at the British Academy June 14 http://bit.ly/iDktci #
The ethologist Tinbergen laid out four fundamental questions that can be asked about any animal behaviour http://bit.ly/l8hXme (wikipedia) #
I'm sure someone came up with a fifth somewhere, but I can't remember what it was #
Andy Barto: "It can be easier to evolve a reward signal to learn a behaviour than to evolve the behaviour itself" #

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Tweets for 2011-05-09

This week's Art Science encounter: Kinetic sculptor and environmental artist Andrew Stonyer http://www.sheffield.ac.uk/arts-science #
The devil is in the detail of the definition of "optimal" RT@mariapage The brain performs visual search near optimally http://t.co/nla73V9 #
Psychologist of deception Aldert Vrij on the 18 characteristics of good liars http://bit.ly/lXZoeo #
Avon understands evolutionary game theory better than Stringer http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lB8C2VfrW4&t=2m11s #
The brain leading us beyond the political left and right – loving this Prospect article by @RSAmatthew http://bit.ly/3DpKm #
Although who is going to tell @RSAMatthew about Hauser's scientific misconduct? Not the best example of research to cite about morality… #

politics psychology

Human nature is back

This Prospect article by the RSA’s Matthew Taylor reviews an impressive amount of socially relevant psychology research. “Human nature is back”, announces Taylor, showing how the “useful shortcut” of the rational actor is now ready to be replaced by an empircally informed model of man as a social, emoitonal, being. Conclusions include

if we want to live an ethical life we do not have to pore over self-help books, but instead choose the social context that is most likely to prompt us to automatic altruism. Blinkered by the idea of humans as entirely driven by self-interest, we believe that altruistic acts must require conscious effort, perhaps as a result of exhortation from leaders. But if we are living balanced lives and enjoy mutual trust with people, behaving well comes naturally.

and

…susceptibility to social influence is hard-wired in us and not simply a characteristic of those lacking willpower. It may not be as catchy as the original slogan, but “tough on crime, even tougher on the causes of crime”is where the evidence points.

and

social institutions and cultural taboos are ways in which “generations hand down… vital tacit knowledge about human nature.”…[they] have developed to protect us from our psychological frailties, encouraging us to act long term and be socially responsible. These devices include the family, the church and civic organisations. As we become richer, we mistakenly think we do not need them.

It’s a rich brew of research evidence and political ideas. Perhaps even enough to give us hope, as Taylor claims that “new ideas about human nature can contribute to a more substantive meeting of minds between left and right”

psychology

real fake emotions

LA Noire is the new game from Rockstar Games, the notorious publisher of Grand Theft Auto. This guardian article describes it as “a new era for interactive entertainment.”, where the gameplay is not about is not about hand-eye coordination but about emotional perception, being able to judge body language and facial “tells”.

The thing is, what will the “true” meaning of the facial expressions in the game be based on? Will the correct judgements be based on the game-designers’ intepretation of what different facial expressions mean? If so, how can we trust that they have the correct intepretation? It isn’t straightforward to read meaning from expressions. Even people who think they are experts at it can be wrong, and many of the clues popularity associated with deception, such as gaze aversion, don’t truly help you tell truth from lies (see the work of Aldert Vrij, at Portsmouth).

It might be that we end up playing a game where you learn to intepret what Rockstar games believes about what people look like when they lie, rather than practice any real world emotional perception

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Tweets for 2011-05-06

"at no time is it permissible to sit idle and observe the poetry of life" http://chzb.gr/eklXv7 #

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Tweets for 2011-05-05

Epistemology fans: come to the lecture tonight on 17th century science and "the invention of the fact" http://shef.ac.uk/arts-science #
For live-tweeting of the Sheffield council elections tonight, follow the Yorkshire Post's @Jeniharvey #politics #sheffield #vote #
If you are in Nether Edge ward you can vote for the Green Party's @RealRobCole in the local elections today.#sheffield #vote #politics #

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Tweets for 2011-05-04

RT @vaughanbell: The convenient fog of war http://t.co/6xFUUBU Why the corrected Bin Laden story will have little impact #
Back in the U of K! #

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Tweets for 2011-05-03

RT @BrainStraining: Brilliant essay on how to find academic problems to work on. http://t.co/kQS9Qzi #
Saw this sign in the window of one of Thessaloniki's many boutiques. It's one response to the financial crisis I guess http://t.co/psOxkVH #
Tomorrow I am giving a lecture on evolutionary game theory at City College, Thessaloniki. I am hoping the outcome will be non-zero sum. #
This introduction to Honest Signalling Theory from Uni of Washington Prof Bergstrom is clear, as well as beautiful http://bit.ly/mlThmA #
Ouch: academia as merely the conspicuous consumption of leisure, esteemed for its impracticality http://bit.ly/k4Cant (Veblen, 1899) #

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Tweets for 2011-05-02

From @almostandy : Why Experimental Psychologists hate psychoanalysis http://t.co/rihxyQI #

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Tweets for 2011-05-01

Ah, that old airport riddle – where is the least awful place I can wait for my plane? #
Fortunately, I never travel without my facebook profile. One should always have something sensational to read on the train #
Hello Thessaloniki #