Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with cognition

Help a workaholic have a productive break.

nosila — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 11:15:45 -0800

I am working on a PhD in music theory and cognition. I hate wasting time, but sometimes my brain needs a break from reading/writing/listening/analyzing. Help me create a list of films and documentaries that relate in some way to my field so that I can stare at a screen sometimes and still feel like I'm feeding my unquenchable desire to learn about music and mind. Some specific topics that are germane to my research:

memory
neuroscience
emotion and meaning
creativity
compositional practice
cognitive science

I'm interested both in documentaries that address these (or related) issues directly and in films that address them in their own sundry ways.

I mostly work on Western Art Music (ugh I hate that name), but I'm into a little bit of everything, so go crazy. I know there are tons of films and documentaries about popular musicians, so unless there's one that's extra, extra good, those are probably not quite what I'm looking for.

If I can watch on the internet, that's extra plus good, but that's no big deal. Thanks a bunch!

What's the best way to test cognitive function, inexpensively, privately, and repeatably?

Anonymous — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 08:20:12 -0800

What is the best way to test cognitive function, inexpensively, privately, and repeatably? I'm looking for some semi-objective means of evaluating different tweakings of my head-med cocktail for Adult ADD and Depression. (I am experimenting under the care and guidance of a physician and am reasonably well versed in the pharmaco-kinetics and -dynamics of my meds -- so please note that I'm not soliciting advice concerning the dangers of making one's own medication decisions.)

creativity, cognition and the book

aesop — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 02:42:35 -0800

I'm working on my PhD in artists' books at the moment. Recently, pursuing aspects of creativity from a cognition-and-creativity viewpoint has become interesting to me. I need a toehold on the science, here. I have an art background rather than a science one though, and I'd appreciate advice on recent books and publications on cognitive aspects of creativity, and in particular aspects that have to do with reading and empathy (...in a creative context). A touch of lazyweb from me, but if you can help me pinpoint something relevant to get me speaking the right language about the topic, I'd be grateful.

Math basics need be strengthening

JoeXIII007 — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 13:20:30 -0800

In need of some daily source of random math problems (upto basic calculus) that will reinforce or (if necessary) re-establish some real fundamental concepts in the algebra portions of calculus, unless something else might work. So I got my first exam back from 2nd Semester Calc based physics today and discovered I received a 78/100, which frankly is not bad compared to the average in the class (mid 60s) but still not great.

My problems were rooted in basic algebra that comes with methods of calculus, and even some elementary stuff as well. One example being I forgot to leave some variables alone in doing partial differentiation (w.r.t. z: 3yz^2 I took to 6z instead of 6yz OR w.r.t. y: 2y^2z^2 I took to 4yz instead of 4yz^2).

Another problem I ran into was that I took 10^-5 to be like 10E-5 on a regular calculator, which among a mess of scientific numbers could be a bad habit.

This has been a recurring problem over the years, but thanks to mercy of professors here and there, it has not been a problem as far as grading is concerned. Now that I have a pretty 'traditional' professor in the sense he will not accept such errors or weigh more heavily on concept, and seeing that I will be transferring into the Big Ten pretty soon, I need to correct this sooner rather than later.

So basically, a full daily workout of fundamentals covering a wide range of material would be in order, and preferably something that does not take too much time.

Unless there is some other thing worth looking into...? I mean I could just remind myself not to do that again, but I think I have been there before. Some reconfig is in need. Somehow. Even some simple daily physics probs might do the trick.

(RSS, if possible, is preferred)

How/can I learn to write and think faster?

Anonymous — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 07:00:59 -0800

Can I learn how to write and think faster? Any tips you'd suggest? My job entails a lot of technical writing, memos, emails, and published writing about technical subjects. I enjoy it, and (ironically) I have been told I'm a good writer, but I am very, very slow at it. It's like my head feels cloudy, and I don't come up with the words fast enough, either in my head, or on the paper/screen. One possible complicating factor is that I've had and been treated for clinical depression for about 10 years now, and recent past ADHD testing led to a major depression diagnosis as well. (as in the depression is interfering with my working memory, rather than ADD) Getting un-depressed would be a good start, but in case it's not just that, I'd like to work on improving my work and writing speed.

Has anyone had any luck in improving their speed and efficiency in a similar situation, particularly in jobs involving writing? Can I practice and get faster?

Honestly, this isn't likely just a work only thing. I feel like I take long to write internet comments, personal emails, and such, too. As a data point, I checked the time in my browser history to see when when I visited this page, and it was 15 mins after the hour. I'm hitting Preview at: 37 mins after the hour.

How to read music when you can't

qsysopr — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 19:14:34 -0800

What's my brain missing that prevents me from being able to (ever) read music? I'm in my late forties and can't understand the first thing about reading music. I see it once a week in church and it drives me crazy that it's all greek to me. To this day, I remember being in grade school and my teacher being angry with me for my poor music test grades. 40 years later, I'm no better at it.

I'm and avid reader and an excellent speller so I'd think I could just pick up reading music like everyone else seems to.

Does Image Alignment Affect Perception Consistently?

Alvy Ampersand — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 15:05:48 -0800

In an image like this, does the alignments of the faces affect the viewers' perceptions or opinions of the people, and if so, does this cognitive bias for or against left or right carry over even to images where the faces are the same (Ie: "I think both people on the left side of either image look more trustworthy.")? Does the alignment of a single subject and addition of negative space also have an affect ("The woman in the second image looks meaner.")? I'm not so much asking for a referendum on these particular examples as I am curious about any empirical studies or statistics relating to this topic. Thanks!

"Brain Training" via videogames: breakthrough or big lie?

phylum sinter — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 22:29:25 -0800

Brain Training Games like Brain Age are a big hit lately -- Do you think they actually improve cognition? [Note: already aware of this thread about sharpening the mind in general. Good advice over there.]

Being both a gamer and a fan of brains puts me right at the intersection of this demographic.

Brain Age 1 & 2 (for Nintendo DS), Brain Challenge (for PC, and Lumosity (browser/online) all have similar claims - improve memory, focus, cognition and reaction time through simple puzzles.

Certainly sounds great, and i'd like to believe that this type of training actually increases my mental capacity outside the game. That said, i am not alone in my skepticism of a game's ability to do this on its' own. There are lots of studies that seem to show both positive and null effects of these games. The biggest problem seems to be that the bulk of the positive results seem focused on showing how well peoples scores within the framework of the game after practice, and not much else.

Does anyone have any evidence, anecdotal or academic in nature that shows more concretely how much these games can actually improve cognitive function?

Starting a PhD, time to start a lab notebook?

doctor.dan — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 20:56:38 -0800

I'm about to embark on a PhD in cognitive neuroscience (imaging genetics, to be specific). It's going to be a long 4 years, is keeping a lab notebook going to ease the discomfort? I know lab notebooks are very popular in fields that are heavy on biology, but my stuff won't be (apparently you have to keep human participants in one piece…). What do you put in a lab notebook? Is it really that useful?

I'll want to be able to run multiple projects at the same time and keep track of what is going on where (i.e., equipment required, what I still need to do to get the project going, room/equipment bookings, participant schedule, etc etc).

If keeping a lab notebook isn't really that useful, what other clever uses are there for my Moleskine (preferably something that will make the phd easier to tolerate).

Help Me Name My Major

dmaterialized — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 11:53:04 -0800

Name-my-major, Hivemind. So I go to an unusual school in that we don't have clear-cut majors, and we basically pick an area of "focus". I'm actually currently (unofficially) studying my own brain, because it's strangely hampered in certain capacities (like the process of reading music, despite being very musical and understanding cognitively exactly what's going on), or performing basic math (despite endless repetition). It's also weirdly bolstered in other regards: I have an unbelievable propensity for forming the visual "distortions" one might associate with hallucinogens. I was also recently diagnosed as having an "inattentive" ADD (as opposed to hyperactivity) but I actually think I've got a different and less generalized issue-- certain cognitive activities simply shut my brain off completely, as if I'm asleep; I'll have very little memory of things that happen during this time (Ritalin does help, but it really doesn't feel like "the right thing"). Visual stimuli, on the other hand, is unbelievably compelling.

But, long story short, this stuff FASCINATES me. That's an understatement-- I really want to understand how this all works, and how it works in other people. I'm interested in the ways in which perception and consciousness interact (why I see things my way and you see things your way, and how they relate). Neuroscience fascinates me (especially the effects of drugs and the ways the brain responds to stimuli), but so do deeper levels of psychology (things like memory distortion, feedback loops, and psychosis).There just needs to be some kind of focal point-- this isn't purely neuroscience, because the psychological dimension is very significant. But what is it?

For an idea of where I'm headed: my favorite books recently are Proust Was a Neuroscientist, Musicophilia, Timothy Leary's "The Psychedelic Experience", and Rita Carson's awesome "Exploring Consciousness". What kind of connection can you make of that? What is this specific field called? Does it even exist? I just need a reference point, somewhere I can branch from. I'm going to be doing a final project in this area next term, but without knowing what kind of research I should be looking at, it's hard to know what to do.

I've been doing this on my own for a while (I tell people I'm studying "consciousness and human perception"), and amassed some kickass links and great books, but I just hope someone out there has a sense of how to focus it a bit more. Any ideas-- on terminology, on projects, on work that would explore this?

I'd like some advice about preventing

gregb1007 — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 18:19:27 -0800

I'd like some advice about preventing "regression" in the ability to speak a foreign language. If I am away from communicating in a foreign language for a few days, it feels like I might have lost it. That's because when I start speaking, I don't feel like I can get into it. It really comes down to a case of"brain freeze." That basically means that when I want to use combinations of words that I have already spit out thousands of times before, they won't come to me. (Watching or reading material in the language while I am away from it doesn't seem to help.)

Of course, after struggling for about a half an hour or a bit longer, I start to ease into the different language and access the previously-used speech patterns.

But shouldn't it be easier than than that? Sometimes I feel like it would be so nice to feel at ease in a foreign language when I start speaking it and not after a long struggle to get back into it.

Any tips to get my brain to switch into a language with less of a struggle?

Make the demons in my head go away

Anonymous — Wed, 28 Mar 2007 13:11:00 -0800

How do I get terrible images and memories out of my head? I'm one of those guys with an extremely good, vivid, image-based memory. Show me a picture of something, and I can call it up in my mind at will. I can see every detail; it's like I'm watching a movie in my head. I'm a creative guy, in a creative field, and I also have a vivid imagination and capability for empathy. Get me started, and my mind can go anywhere. Most of the time, I can make this work for me quite well.

Ever since I had my own children, I've been ... tormented ... by stories of violence, especially to children. I can see the images in my head; I can't escape them. The recent case of Christopher Barrios in Savannah, Georgia, is a perfect example; I can't seem to let it go. I can't get that little boy's smiling face out of my mind. I can SEE the crime all happening in my imagination. I have the entire horrible movie playing on a loop inside my head. All made up. The mind just filling in the blanks. I can't control it.

I'm not crazy. I *know* this is irrational. I *know* this is my imagination getting the best of me. I *know* this is all inside my head. I *know* this is related to my empathy for my own kids.

I just feel anxious and icky and horrified for days after hearing another story. I think of these poor kids, the imagination goes crazy, my love for my own kids gets mixed in and ... ick.

I don't believe in magic or the wishy-washy areas psychology, and I generally like my imagination, so I'd like to keep it. I just need tools and strategies to smooth out the rough edges.

How does someone like Stephen King do it? How do you walk around with images of real horror in your head and still have enough mental energy to, like, just take out the garbage, mow the lawn and keep on truckin'?

How do I improve my ability to form mental images?

philosophistry — Mon, 25 Dec 2006 17:39:23 -0800

How do I improve my ability to form mental images? I've always had difficulty reading fiction. When I read novels, all I get at the end is an impression of what happened.

I've always also had difficulty reading screenplays and "seeing" what's going on.

My belief is that I don't form clear enough mental visions of things. If someone said "two young people are walking down the street" all that appears in my head are two vertical poles vibrating across a sidewalk. I don't see the girl's nice hair, nor the guy's solid physique. Nor do I see the weather, the clouds, the lamp posts, the windows, the whites of anybody's eyes.

When I wake up in the morning sometimes, I get some strange lucid moments where I can really see settings. So I believe the potential is in my brain somewhere.

Some exercises I've tried recently include the following:

- Playing Brain Age, specifically the following training exercises: Time Lapse, Triangle Division, Syllable Count, Low to High, and Head Count. The idea is that by improving my mental scratch, short-term memory, I can hold more things in my head simultaneously

- Listening to Audiobooks. With audiobooks I can close my eyes and let the details unfold. Also, I feel that when reading books, I get stuck only seeing words.

- Representational Drawing. I'm great at abstract drawing, but to have an idea for something then represent it is something I'm working on.

- "Feature-generating" cognitive exercises. I sit down and present myself with something to visualize, like "two young people are walking down the street" and I start dictating things for me to see, "okay, show me the clouds, show me their eye colors" etc.. and eventually I find the picture slowly comes into focus.

Is there any good places to look for help with this?

Purple Haze All In My Brain

jasondigitized — Tue, 03 Oct 2006 09:45:44 -0800

From the age of 17 until about 30, I was doing alot of 'partying', enough binge drinking and bong tokes to have surely killed a lot of brain cells. Currently I may go out hard like once every two months. I always partied like a rockstar, and have probably 'forgotten' more wild nights than my tamer aquaintances have probably ever experienced. I am not exactly proud of this. And now, after all these years of neurological irresponsibility, I seem to be walking around in a constant cognitive haze. Some days are better than others, but for the most part, I feel like I just woke up, feeling groggy, all day long. A kind of perma-fog. All of my cognitive functions seem to be a little numbed. My question for all the neurologists out there is what is causing this post-hangover fog on my brain, will it ever go away, and what can I do to lift it away. Do I need to get a B12 injection, eat lots of fish, lay off the sauce, or am I simply going to be in this purple haze forever.....

You've hit it on the head...

acoutu — Sun, 16 Jul 2006 22:27:04 -0800

Toddler capabilities. What are 14- to 18-months old capable of doing with regard to physical safety? I probably haven't worded the question above very well, so I will attempt to explain what I'm getting at.

I'm the parent of a 17-month-old and I seem to be at odds with some of the other parents of children my child's age. I am not generally concerned with how other people parent and I respect their right to choose. However, I have been surprised by some of the decisions made by other parents and the statements they have made in support of those decisions. For example, some of the parents I know allow their 15- to 17-month-old children to go on stairs, 3 to 5 foot high open-sided playground equipment designed for children over 5, park benches, short concrete walls, gym benches, slides, and other structures without assistance. The parents will sometimes be 5 to 10 feet away or, in the case of playground equipment, will be several arms' lengths away.

I know that there are many parenting styles and that it's appropriate to parent according to your child's needs. I'm not a perfect parent and I don't expect that of other people. However, some other people have approached me about one child's safety and I became a little more concerned, too, after that child fell down stairs, off playground equipment, etc.

Are children in this age rage mentally capable of being safe in these situations? It seems to me that playground equipment designed for children over 5 is a bit of a giveaway. And I would have thought people would think the equipment for children under 5 means that it is not automatically safe for any child under that age. However, other parents say that falling and navigating equipment is a natural part of learning and that holding your child's hand or going up on the equipment with them equates to hovering and will have lifelong repercussions in terms of the child's ability to take risks. They talk about their child's ability to assess danger and mitigate risks.

(Note that I'm not worried about kids walking along and tripping over their own feet on the ground. I guess I'm interested in climbing and structures.)

Are there any studies or sites that indicate what *most* children in this age range can safely manage? Are children this age generally in possession of cognitive abilities that allow them to understand and manage these kinds of danger? I'd be interested in learning what injury happens to the child's brain when they fall down stairs or off a bench, but I am probably veering off topic. I suppose I'm generally interested in learning about safety guidelines for this age group, along with any studies that point to how that appropriateness was determined.

I'm not meaning this as an attack on other parents or parenting styles. I just would like to know about guidelines and actual readiness for these kinds of risks. Everything in life is risk, of course!

Human vs Animal Brains:

0bvious — Tue, 09 May 2006 01:10:49 -0800

What experiments have been carried out where animals perform better than us at particular cognitive tasks? I remember reading / seeing an experiment performed with chimps that seemed to show that they could hold a higher number of objects in their mind at any one time than humans can.

I remember seeing them tapping on numbered buttons when objects were flashed in front of them. Humans perfomed less well on the same task at higher speeds and numbers.

Know this experiment?

How about ANY OTHER similar resulting experiments?

Thanks a lot

Me, Myself, and Eye

Laugh_track — Fri, 17 Feb 2006 07:45:31 -0800

What if there was a video game you could play only by moving your eyes across the screen? What sort of game would this be? The reason I ask is because I have recently been placed in a position where I have the resources to carry out this project if I wish, and so I have begun thinking about the question seriously, and now I wish to discuss it on the internet. I am not concerned with developing a product to sell in a video game market, so don't come at me with logistics issues. What I am concerned with is expanding my own consciousness using video games, and I believe that this is within my means.

Here is the problem to solve: video games work by allowing the player to scan the screen, and then make a deliberate decision to act. What I am proposing is to remove the player's ability to deliberate. It will be impossible in this game to scan the screen without causing some sort of change. What kind of games would even be possible in this setup? Also, what kind of games would be fun?

How do people with little/no language skills process information/think?

jsteward — Wed, 23 Nov 2005 09:25:16 -0800

How does a deaf person, without reading or writing skills, process information? Years ago, I worked with a wonderful man, who was developmentally disabled, knew only a few rudimentary ASL signs, but was able to perform activities of daily living very well. What are your ideas about his thought processes? Inspired by previous question: "Does a person's native language affect their cognitive skills and thinking patterns?"

Why Whitey Can't Integrate

kcm — Tue, 22 Nov 2005 13:22:09 -0800

Does a person's native language affect their cognitive skills and thinking patterns? I've been wondering about how any given language may affect a person's ways of thinking and cognitive patterns, for lack of a better way of thinking about it. For example, if a child learns Mandarin/Chinese speaking and writing, how might this affect how they form ideas and thoughts as opposed to a Spanish speaker/writer? The differences in the languages seem to indicate that there might be a vast difference, to me.

I'm having a hard time conceptualizing what I'm wondering, and this is one of the problems with searching the web for it. I'm hoping someone has experience with cognitive development relating to native/first languages. I suppose it really boils down to how a given person forms thoughts, in the end, and so it might entail quite a bit of reading, and I would love that. :)

Are mental blanks normal?

wackybrit — Thu, 21 Jul 2005 22:17:33 -0800

Are mental blanks normal? Sometimes I might be looking at a photo of a family member or my girlfriend and suddenly feel like I don't know that person, feel no emotional attachment to them, and forget almost everything about them. Within half a minute, it all comes back. When I was a teenager the same thing happened with the alphabet and numbers (both verbally and visually) where, perhaps, I could say H but not know how it would be written, and on other times vice versa. And on quite rare occasion (few times a year?), it also happens when I look at myself in the mirror, and it takes several seconds to remember who I am.

I don't feel this is a medical question, as such, but want to know if this is something "everyone has". I suspect it is. Do you have mental blanks like this? They cause me no problems, so I'm interested to learn more.

Are traditional books inherently better than audio books?

peacay — Wed, 25 May 2005 22:09:03 -0800

Books v Audio Books: What is the unique value of the work of reading? I read this NYT article today and it got me thinking. I sifted the archives here and read these threads. I'm wondering whether all the mental calisthenics we go through when we read a book such as word recognition and parsing phrases and identifying syntactical tropes and the whole eye-brain circuitry are actually overrated.
If it's accepted that this reading 'work' is a cognitively good exercise, are we just as well off indulging the practise by reading on the internet and a newspaper and processing larger pieces like novels or texts by simply hearing them through audio books and thereby allowing the possibility of increasing the input?
Are the cognitive processes of plowing through some literary work in a regular book format necessary or very important to fully appreciate a particular work? Is it true sometimes and not others? How, apart from perhaps fortifying the memory, is this so?
Who has tried audio books and found them lacking (leaving aside the quality of the narrator and perhaps the practicalities of mp3/discman troubles) and if so why? Who has read AND listened to the same work and what say you as to the benefits or detractions of each?
I guess I'm mostly looking at the cognition qualities -- the different processes we go through in reading and in listening and their associated positives/negatives. I hope this is relatively clear and not coming across like a survey.
And if I'm giving the impression that I have a preformed opinion, that's not so. I'm just trying to work it out.

Brain workouts

Gyan — Wed, 20 Apr 2005 15:23:51 -0800

I want to cultivate some good mental exercising habits. For that, I need some good, diverse sources for puzzles and activities. Specifically, I'm looking for, preferably free, sites with a decent database of verbal, logical, spatial, lateral thinking games. The format can be flexible, so crosswords are included. Also, games that test and hone reflexes and reactions are also welcome. Additionally, ADHDers are also advised to stimulate the cerebellum. Any help on that? Basically, I'd like a list of resources for complete brain workout, that can be performed atleast once every day. Obviously, I'm not looking for one site to include all of the above.

What is Interesting?

JZig — Tue, 12 Apr 2005 00:09:17 -0800

What makes something Interesting? Specifically, what is it about fractals, The Game of Life, the screensaver on my laptop that keeps distracting me (whoo, xscreensaver), and abstract art that causes me to stare at them for long periods of time without getting bored? It's not relevance or usefulness to my life, and it seems to be more than just the low level interest that, say, shiny things offer. Cognitive Science/Psychology and personal experience answers would both be appreciated!

Where are our lines?

argybarg — Thu, 24 Mar 2005 20:59:49 -0800

One of my bright fourth-grade students asked me something she said has been bugging her for a while: "Why don't people have lines? Like in the cartoons?" Not as in lines of dialogue; lines in the drawing, to mark our feature. Every attempt at a reasonable explanation (we just imagine they're there when we make drawings; they help us organize visual information in our minds) didn't make sense to her. She wants to know where our lines are. What can I tell her? (Be polite; I may print this for her.)

Why does everything have an aura when I look at it?

Keyser Soze — Sun, 05 Dec 2004 21:40:11 -0800

In good light, when I look at a blank white sheet of paper the edge of the right looks like RGB colors seperating. Red, then yellow, then the white sheet itself. If I look at the left edge, it appears slightly blue. What is wrong with me?