Frontal Lobes May Not Be That Important. Lots of Research and Neurocognitive Ideas May Wash Out.
05/14/2013
Enthusiasts for human exceptionalism and lots of other ideas and research about how humans are so much better and different from other animals, have concentrated on what they thought made the human brain different and was bigger – the frontal lobes. They all think! Wrong, it appears. Oops. Big oops, actually.
Human brain frontal lobes not relatively large, not sole center of intelligence
Human intelligence cannot be explained by the size of the brain’s frontal lobes, say researchers. Research into the comparative size of the frontal lobes in humans and other species has determined that they are not – as previously thought – disproportionately enlarged relative to other areas of the brain, according to the most accurate and conclusive study of this area of the brain.It concludes that the size of our frontal lobes cannot solely account for humans’ superior cognitive abilities. Read the rest of this entry »
“….as a scientist I have to be sceptical of anecdotes.” We would say as a professional as well.
05/01/2013
We would question some of this but critical thinking is good.
Take Aways
- “We find suggestions – that we are at the brink of a neuroscientific revolution in the study of leadership – premature, and a sole focus on neuroscience, at the expense of insights from other social science disciplines, dangerous.”
- “…it is too simplistic to assume that through neuroscience we can identify ‘good’ leaders and rectify ‘bad’ leaders.
“Research Questions Role Of Neuroscience In Leadership Studies 29/04/2013 excerpted from The FINANCIAL
Research at the University of Liverpool questions the extent to which studies of the human brain are able to offer insights into what constitutes ‘good leadership’. Read the rest of this entry »
these findings suggest that the case for altruistic punishment in humans—a view that has gained increasing attention in the biological and social sciences—has been overstated. Read the rest of this entry »
There has been a recent emphasis on content but little research supporting it — here is some. Also support for neuromarketing.
Take Aways
- “An ad is only as strong as its central argument, which matters more than its audiovisual presentation
- This is the first time research has shown an association between cognition and brain activity in response to content and format in televised ads and behavior.
- If you give someone an unconvincing ad, it doesn’t matter what format you do on top of that. You can make it sensational. But in terms of effectiveness, content is more important.”
Anti-Smoking Ads With Strong Arguments, Not Flashy Editing, Trigger Part Of Brain That Changes Behavior Apr. 23, 2013
Researchers…have shown that an area of the brain that initiates behavioral changes had greater activation in smokers who watched anti-smoking ads with strong arguments versus those with weaker ones, and irrespective of flashy elements, like bright and rapidly changing scenes, loud sounds and unexpected scenario twists.
This is the first time research has shown an association between cognition and brain activity in response to content and format in televised ads and behavior.
Even ads riddled with attention-grabbing tactics, the research suggests, are not effective at reducing tobacco intake unless their arguments are strong. However, ads with flashy editing and strong arguments, for example, produced better recognition. Read the rest of this entry »
Marketers need to think a lot more about the behavioral and optimizing mechanics of buying and thus, principals of thermodynamics!
“Abstract
Recent advances in fields ranging from cosmology to computer science have hinted at a possible deep connection between intelligence and entropy maximization, but no formal physical relationship between them has yet been established. Here, we explicitly propose a first step toward such a relationship in the form of a causal generalization of entropic forces that we find can cause two defining behaviors of the human “cognitive niche”—tool use and social cooperation—to spontaneously emerge in simple physical systems. Our results suggest a potentially general thermodynamic model of adaptive behavior as a nonequilibrium process in open systems.
An ambitious new paper published in Physical Review Letters seeks to describe intelligence as a fundamentally thermodynamic process…(…describes intelligent behavior as a way to maximize the capture of possible future histories of a particular system…)… Read the rest of this entry »
“Using a natural experimental design with three time points, we found that:
- when people change from a home context to a college context they are susceptible to the influence of the cognitive styles of those around them, even when the others are initially strangers
- This effect was shown at both 3 and 6 months
- and the results cannot be explained by a depression contagion effect or by increased stress.
Moreover, the contagion effect has depressive consequences. Those who experienced an increase in cognitive vulnerability had increased risk for future depressive symptoms.”
Cognitive Vulnerability to Depression Can Be Contagious — April 16, 2013
Gerald J. Haeffel, Haggar Hall, University of Notre Dame, Notre DameAbstract
Cognitive vulnerability is a potent risk factor for depression. Individual differences in cognitive vulnerability solidify in early adolescence and remain stable throughout the life span. However, stability does not mean immutability. We hypothesized that cognitive vulnerability would be susceptible to change during major life transitions when social milieus undergo significant changes (e.g., moving to college). Read the rest of this entry »
