New from Wired

Scientists Think They’ve Found the Region of the Brain That Regulates Conscious Perception
A new experiment suggests that the thalamus plays a key role in humans becoming consciously aware of stimuli their brain receives.

"A team of scientists has identified areas of the brain that are activated when a person becomes aware of themself and their thoughts. "

Neurologists locate present-at-hand in the brain.

#neurology #Heidegger #cognition
https://www.wired.com/story/scientists-think-theyve-found-the-brain-region-that-regulates-conscious-perception/

Mapping the mind: Chinese and French scientists advance on neural origins of consciousness https://www.byteseu.com/945447/ #BGIResearch #ClaudeBernardUniversityLyon1 #cognition #consciousness #CrabEatingMacaque #depression #evolution #Hippocampus #macaque #marmosets #NeurologicalDisorders #RNA #Science #SleepRegulation #SubcorticalRegions #TranscriptomeAtlas

https://www.europesays.com/uk/39495/ Early Alzheimer’s Clues Found in Adults as Young as 24 #Aging #Alzheimer'sDisease #BrainResearch #cognition #ColumbiaUniversity #Genetics #Health #neurobiology #Neurology #Neuroscience #UK #UnitedKingdom

Creating Solutions to The Meaning Crisis

There is a reason you feel lost in a toxic culture.

Introducing Dr. John Vervaeke:

John Vervaeke, PhD is an award-winning lecturer at the University of Toronto in the departments of psychology, cognitive science and Buddhist psychology.

Watch THIS Series --> https://videos.trom.tf/w/p/7iqkxh8CVh3NugEj7qtJ3x?playlistPosition=1
#vervaeke #meaning #meaningcrisis #psychology #cognition

From now through May 11, you can use this link to get the audio version of my book Neuroqueer Heresies for 50% off!

#books #audiobooks #neuroqueer #neurodiversity #neurodivergence #queer #autism #autistic #psychology #cognition #consciousness #bodymind

https://www.audiobooks.com/promotions/promotedBook/626676/neuroqueer-heresies-notes-on-the-neurodiversity-paradigm-autistic-empowerment-and-postnormal-possibilities?refId=189751

https://www.europesays.com/uk/16810/ What Are Thoughts? Exploring the Mystery of the Mind #AI #ArtificialIntelligence #BrainResearch #cognition #consciousness #DeepLearning #MachineLearning #neurobiology #Neuroscience #Technology #TheConversation #thinking #thoughts #UK #UnitedKingdom

Study links a child's early #social environment to the development of the #brain

#cognition #anthropology #lifehistory

https://www.science.org/content/article/early-experiences-shape-brain-s-communication-superhighways-affect-cognition

#Evolution #Neuroscience #Cognition - Crows recognize geometric regularity - "The crows exhibited a geometric regularity effect, showing better performance with shapes featuring right angles, parallel lines, or symmetry over more irregular shapes. This performance advantage did not require learning. Our findings suggest that geometric intuitions are not specific to humans but are deeply rooted in biological evolution." - Philipp Schmidbauer et al., Crows recognize geometric regularity.Sci. Adv.11,eadt3718(2025).DOI:10.1126/sciadv.adt3718 https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.adt3718

Generative AI Meets Psychobabble https://www.byteseu.com/911043/ #AI #ArtificialIntelligence #ArtificialIntelligence(AI) #ChatGPTGPT4OpenAI #cognition #GenerativeAI #GoogleGeminiAnthropicClaude #LargeLanguageModelLLM #MentalHealth #psychobabble #Psychology

The risk is real, very real:
#llm #genai #chatbot #cognition #futurism

https://futurism.com/cognitive-decay-ai

Here's the official info on the new Bachelor of Science program in Psychedelic Studies that I helped to create (and will be teaching in) at California Institute of Integral Studies.

#psychedelics #psychology #consciousness #cognition #academia #education #therapy #mind #psychedelicresearch

https://www.ciis.edu/academics/continuing-undergraduate-programs/bachelor-science-psychedelic-studies

Aalto University: Is AI truly creative? Turns out creativity is in the eye of the beholder. “What makes people think an AI system is creative? New research shows that it depends on how much they see of the creative act. The findings have implications for how we research and design creative AI systems, and they also raise fundamental questions about how we perceive creativity in other people.”

https://rbfirehose.com/2025/04/08/aalto-university-is-ai-truly-creative-turns-out-creativity-is-in-the-eye-of-the-beholder/

North Carolina State University: New Technique Overcomes Spurious Correlations Problem in AI. “AI models often rely on ‘spurious correlations,’ making decisions based on unimportant and potentially misleading information. Researchers have now discovered these learned spurious correlations can be traced to a very small subset of the training data and have demonstrated a technique that […]

https://rbfirehose.com/2025/04/08/north-carolina-state-university-new-technique-overcomes-spurious-correlations-problem-in-ai/

Article in the SF Chronicle about the new Bachelor of Science program in Psychedelic Studies launching this fall at California Institute of Integral Studies.

I helped to create the program and I'll be part of the faculty.

#psychedelics #psychology #consciousness #cognition #mind #academia

https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/california-institute-integral-studies-psychedelic-20238857.php

VentureBeat: Don’t believe reasoning models’ Chains of Thought, says Anthropic. “In a new paper, Anthropic researchers tested the ‘faithfulness’ of CoT models’ reasoning by slipping them a cheat sheet and waiting to see if they acknowledged the hint. The researchers wanted to see if reasoning models can be reliably trusted to behave as intended. Through comparison testing, where the […]

https://rbfirehose.com/2025/04/06/venturebeat-dont-believe-reasoning-models-chains-of-thought-says-anthropic/

Pretty interesting study on nontrivial #compositionality in #bonobos -- a 'uniquely human' language feature

#languageevolution #greatapes #primatecommunication #anthropology #cognition

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adv1170

Nico Dekens: The Slow Collapse of Critical Thinking in OSINT due to AI. “When OSINT becomes too easy, too efficient, too comfortable… you should be worried. Tradecraft isn’t just about speed, it’s about judgment. And judgment doesn’t come from a language model. If we keep going down this path without pushing back, without actively preserving the critical habits that define our […]

https://rbfirehose.com/2025/04/04/nico-dekens-the-slow-collapse-of-critical-thinking-in-osint-due-to-ai/

#introduction

Studied linguist and cognitive scientist who transformed into a software engineer.

Interested in #Anthropology, #Nutrition, #Sports, #Cognition and #Psychology, #Japanese, #Literature, #Minimalism or rather #Simplification.

I enjoy making #Music and writing things #writing. It’s the little things that matter.

Yet another study confirms that resistance training protects against cognitive decline.

Summary: https://neurosciencenews.com/weight-training-alzheimers-aging-28538/

Original paper: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11357-024-01483-8

A new study finds that people tend to overestimate the size of small demographic groups because of cognitive errors in estimation of small proportions, not necessarily because of misinformation, ignorance, or animus. The authors emphasize that their findings do not negate the existence of those effects.

https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.2413064122 (not open access)

Preprint at https://www.brianguay.com/files/guay_2024_misperceptions.pdf