People are blinded

People are blinded 

O! Say can you see

Though the same sun shines on Syrian families who washed up dead on the shores of the Aegean.

By the dawn's early light

We hail a god that doesn't exist

What so proudly we hailed

while making a sacrilege of the principles we claim he upholds.

At the twilight's last gleaming

We'd rather decry meaningless symbols

Whose bright stripes

and cast stones at those we do not understand

and bright stars 

than face any true fight for real freedom, not to mention equality.

Through the perilous fight

The haves and have-nots are firmly divided by a wall firmer than stone,

O'er the ramparts we watched

and blood gleams as it pours out across the world.

Were so gallantly gleaming?

Rockets,

Through the rocket's red glare

Bombs,

The bombs bursting in air

The proof of tyranny and terror

Gave proof through the night

That reigns from nation to nation:

That our flag was still there.

A clear sign of hatred, bigotry, intolerance

Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave

O'er the land of the free [What land of the free
And the home of the brave. What home of the brave?]

Learning Language by Eavesdropping

Reblogged from NeuWriteSD.org:

via WikiMedia Commons.

Though kids seem to learn language without effort, scientists continue to puzzle over how children go from scream-y, pre-linguistic squooshballs to slightly-less-scream-y toddlers who can string a few words together (including “no!”) to older children who speak more or less like adults do. Researchers have learned a lot about how kids learn to talk—they know that children are in tune with their environment, with caregivers [1-2]. More recently, research suggests that when mom and dad direct their attention (and verbal labels) towards what a child is already engaged with, children might to learn more quickly [3]–that is, when mom says “doggy” and a child is petting the dog, the word is probably more likely to stick than if only mom was looking at the dog.

Read more at NeuWriteSD.org...

A Neu- way to Write, and Beyond

New post on the UCSD Cognitive Science Blog repping NeuWrite SD and other venues for science communication at UCSD:

Students in cognitive science, neuroscience, and other disciplines at UCSD look for new ways of communicating science, including NeuWriteSD.org. 

As recent Pew Research polls indicate, views on key issues (like climate change and genetically-modified foods) often differ drastically between the public, in general, and scientists, in particular. Like the kids whose opinions changed after actually visiting a lab and speaking with scientists, it stands to reason that many people’s opinions of science (and scientists) might change given more experience communicating with scientists.

Read more here...

Language, memory and aging: The words to say it

Reblogged from my post on HippoReads.com:

"Few memories from my first course in cognitive psychology have stuck with me over time. There was the time the time the professor was appalled when he learned how many drinks the young fraternity member who always sat in the front row downed every weekend. More relevant to the course material, I also remember thinking that serial position memory curves—the idea that, when given a list of words to remember, people perform much better on the earliest items (primacy effects) and the most recent items (recency effects)—were fascinating. And I remember when my professor went to the chalkboard and plotted age vs. accuracy for serial memory tasks, telling us to enjoy our nubile brains now, because it only goes downhill from here."

Keep reading here...

Subtle sexism: Stereotypes and how they shape us

Reblogged from NeuWriteSD.org:

Gender stereotypes are pervasive. Though Disney has recently come out with some kick-ass princesses (my personal favorites are the icy Elsa and fiery Anna, who don’t need a prince to save them in Frozen), enter any major toy store and you can still find row upon row of pink paraphernalia and sparkly tiaras.

Continue reading at NeuWriteSD.com...

A science of falling in love?

Reblogged from NeuWriteSD.org:

“To fall in love with anyone, do this!” proclaimed the headline of a recent article from the New York Times’ Modern Love column. As a skeptic in everything (and what cognitive scientist wouldn’t be skeptical of such a statement?), it seemed shocking to discover that the secret to falling in love, according to the article, was to answer a series of 36 straightforward, yet personal, questions—with a stranger. And to gaze into their eyes (longingly?) for about four minutes.

Read more on NeuWriteSD.com ...

Hearing voices: Social context influences psychosis

Reblogged from NeuWriteSD.org:

“People are always selling the idea that people with mental illness are suffering. I think madness can be an escape. If things are not so good, you maybe want to imagine something better.”

These are the words of John Nash, Jr., the Nobel Laureate who inspired the book and the movie A Beautiful Mind and who suffered from schizophrenia, including paranoid delusions of grandeur during which he felt he could intercept secret messages with important content instructing him on how to rescue the planet.

How individuals experiencing psychotic symptoms come to interpret such messages is a fascinating question. In a recent academic talk, Stanford psychological anthropologist Tanya Luhrmann addressed this question by arguing persuasively for the influence of culture on the symptomatology of psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia (for a great recap of a similar talk by Luhrmann, see this blog post from PLoS). Strikingly, she claims, positive psychotic symptoms, in particular hearing voices, manifest differently in different cultures. 

Continuing reading here...