Well, that all depends on how you look at it … Ambiguous image illusions seem to simultaneously point out limitations in our visual system (dependence on shapes, edges and previous experiences in interpreting what’s in our visual field) as well as its flexibility (because in the end, most of us can see both shapes). Think about that while you explore the young lady/old lady, rabbit/duck and whale/kangaroo illusions above. I wonder how these work for people who experience “face blindness”, the inability to recognize and identify faces. Radiolab explored that condition previously.
Zoom Info
Well, that all depends on how you look at it … Ambiguous image illusions seem to simultaneously point out limitations in our visual system (dependence on shapes, edges and previous experiences in interpreting what’s in our visual field) as well as its flexibility (because in the end, most of us can see both shapes). Think about that while you explore the young lady/old lady, rabbit/duck and whale/kangaroo illusions above. I wonder how these work for people who experience “face blindness”, the inability to recognize and identify faces. Radiolab explored that condition previously.
Zoom Info
Well, that all depends on how you look at it … Ambiguous image illusions seem to simultaneously point out limitations in our visual system (dependence on shapes, edges and previous experiences in interpreting what’s in our visual field) as well as its flexibility (because in the end, most of us can see both shapes). Think about that while you explore the young lady/old lady, rabbit/duck and whale/kangaroo illusions above. I wonder how these work for people who experience “face blindness”, the inability to recognize and identify faces. Radiolab explored that condition previously.
Zoom Info

Well, that all depends on how you look at it …

Ambiguous image illusions seem to simultaneously point out limitations in our visual system (dependence on shapes, edges and previous experiences in interpreting what’s in our visual field) as well as its flexibility (because in the end, most of us can see both shapes).

Think about that while you explore the young lady/old lady, rabbit/duck and whale/kangaroo illusions above.

I wonder how these work for people who experience “face blindness”, the inability to recognize and identify faces. Radiolab explored that condition previously.

Why does music make us feel so many emotions?

I’ve got a new episode of It’s Okay To Be Smart going live on YouTube in a few minutes, all about some of the science behind why music is capable of making us feel so many feels.

image

I’m also excited because Mike from PBS Idea Channel did a video about the same thing and you can watch both and really get your think on. Whatever the reason, the fact is that music is just vibrations of sound in various patterns and arrangements … so what gives?

What makes it different from a jackhammer? Are our brains wired to sense emotion in music? Or do we just associate emotions based on our cultural influences? Is music just a side effect of our evolution? Or is music/emotion deeply rooted in our neural development as a species, even contributing to our species social success?

The video will be up in no time. But first … What do you think?

This GIF might break your brain a little:

Take a look at the sequence of images below (I recommend clicking through to enlarge, Tumblr Dashboard folks). Works best if you stare at the dot:

Color? Or black and white?

The rods and cones of your retina respond to the illumination (black-white) and color of a scene, respectively. But that input passes through one key information filter on the way to your visual cortex. 

In a sense, your rods and cones take a wavelength survey of the visual field, measuring all the wavelengths they are capable of measuring. It’s the “opponent process” that begins to give color meaning. It’s not only how “red” something is, it’s also how “not green” it is. Likewise, a yellow tulip in the original image from above is intensely “not blue”.

When looking at the “blue” tulips, your blue photoreceptors get fatigued. This creates the illusion of yellow when the blue surplus is taken away. 

Ouch. I need to close my eyes.

…remember that just because a PC is not running Windows doesn’t mean that it’s broken. Not all the features of atypical human operating systems are bugs. We owe many of the wonders of modern life to innovators who were brilliant in non-neurotypical ways.

From a thought-provoking essay by Steve Silberman in Wired: Neurodiversity Rewires Conventional Thinking About Brains.

Who’s to say that the “predominant” brain wiring is the “best” brain wiring? Evolution, both biological and cultural, has relied on variation in populations to move forward. For instance, just because people live on the autism spectrum, doesn’t mean they should be pushed to the fringes of society. Perhaps we should ask if there are new ways that they can better society?

Source: Wired

LOLscience of why cats (and other animals) like stroking

Nature covers a nearly purr-fect neuroscience study that looks at why cats and other animals love to groom each other. Specialized neurons respond to stroking, but not poking, and stimulate pleasure circuits in the brain. Humans might share some of these neurons in our own skin, which explains our fondness for massages, head scratching and other gentle caresses.

In short, why pets like to be pet. 

Source: youtube.com

You’re looking at a brain. But not really. Connectograms are an intersection of data, neuroscience, design and art. This represents the inter-brain-region connections of 110 right-handed men, with various color codes indicated to show how strong those connections are in various ways. The Wikipedia page can decode the regions around the edge for you. Studying the wiring of the brain is essential to understanding it. But it is not sufficient to understand it. We love to share beautiful images of brain mapping studies (I do it all the time), but relying on mapping alone is like clicking through Google Maps and saying you’ve been to Paris.  There’s just something missing, right? And that something is us. Except that we must be in there, because we can’t exist outside of that. But why can’t we distill our “us-ness” from the map of all the pieces? But does this map show you a brain? Does it show you a person? What’s the difference?
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You’re looking at a brain. But not really.

Connectograms are an intersection of data, neuroscience, design and art. This represents the inter-brain-region connections of 110 right-handed men, with various color codes indicated to show how strong those connections are in various ways. The Wikipedia page can decode the regions around the edge for you.

Studying the wiring of the brain is essential to understanding it. But it is not sufficient to understand it. We love to share beautiful images of brain mapping studies (I do it all the time), but relying on mapping alone is like clicking through Google Maps and saying you’ve been to Paris. 

There’s just something missing, right? And that something is us. Except that we must be in there, because we can’t exist outside of that. But why can’t we distill our “us-ness” from the map of all the pieces?

But does this map show you a brain? Does it show you a person? What’s the difference?

Source: Wikipedia

Ever wonder just why some music makes you feel so good? Virginia Hughes reports on some super-interesting new neuroscience research by Valorie Salimpoor at her National Geographic blog: Only Human There’s quite a bit of nitty-gritty brain science at play here, but here’s the highlights: The Big Questions: The major mystery in the biology of music is “why?” How do mere vibrations in the air bring on such deep emotional responses? Did this have any influence on our evolution, or is it just a side effect of the myriad of tweaks and evolutionary forces that made us human? What They Found: When test subjects listened to songs they had never heard before and asked whether they wanted to buy them, they engaged brain pathways involved in reward, pleasure, memory, prediction and judgment. When we hear new music, we appear to call upon “templates” for what we like in our memory. Then regions involved in prediction and judgment decide how much it fits our expectations, and searches for a “Goldilocks zone” of novelty and familiarity. If it fits, then we get a rush of pleasure in the brain’s reward pathway. What Questions Remain: Why do people with similar exposures have such different tastes? How similar and different can things be before they become pleasurable/not pleasurable?  New music is a series of memory, prediction, judgment and pleasure. It’s a whole-brain activity, and it’s a uniquely and wonderfully human experience. I highly recommend checking out Ginny’s full article. This is fascinating stuff. There will be an episode of It’s Okay To Be Smart all about music and evolution in the near future. Stay tuned!
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Ever wonder just why some music makes you feel so good? Virginia Hughes reports on some super-interesting new neuroscience research by Valorie Salimpoor at her National Geographic blog: Only Human

There’s quite a bit of nitty-gritty brain science at play here, but here’s the highlights:

The Big Questions: The major mystery in the biology of music is “why?” How do mere vibrations in the air bring on such deep emotional responses? Did this have any influence on our evolution, or is it just a side effect of the myriad of tweaks and evolutionary forces that made us human?

What They Found: When test subjects listened to songs they had never heard before and asked whether they wanted to buy them, they engaged brain pathways involved in reward, pleasure, memory, prediction and judgment. When we hear new music, we appear to call upon “templates” for what we like in our memory. Then regions involved in prediction and judgment decide how much it fits our expectations, and searches for a “Goldilocks zone” of novelty and familiarity. If it fits, then we get a rush of pleasure in the brain’s reward pathway.

What Questions Remain: Why do people with similar exposures have such different tastes? How similar and different can things be before they become pleasurable/not pleasurable? 

New music is a series of memory, prediction, judgment and pleasure. It’s a whole-brain activity, and it’s a uniquely and wonderfully human experience.

I highly recommend checking out Ginny’s full article. This is fascinating stuff. There will be an episode of It’s Okay To Be Smart all about music and evolution in the near future. Stay tuned!

Source: National Geographic

When people listen to a piece of music they have never heard before, activity in one brain region can reliably and consistently predict whether they will like or buy it, this is the nucleus accumbens which is involved in forming expectations that may be rewarding. What makes music so emotionally powerful is the creation of expectations. Activity in the nucleus accumbens is an indicator that expectations were met or surpassed, and in our study we found that the more activity we see in this brain area while people are listening to music, the more money they are willing to spend.
The second important finding is that the nucleus accumbens doesn’t work alone, but interacts with the auditory cortex, an area of the brain that stores information about the sounds and music we have been exposed to. The more a given piece was rewarding, the greater the cross-talk between these regions. Similar interactions were also seen between the nucleus accumbens and other brain areas, involved in high-level sequencing, complex pattern recognition and areas involved in assigning emotional and reward value to stimuli. In other words, the brain assigns value to music through the interaction of ancient dopaminergic reward circuitry, involved in reinforcing behaviours that are absolutely necessary for our survival such as eating and sex, with some of the most evolved regions of the brain, involved in advanced cognitive processes that are unique to humans.

“This is interesting because music consists of a series of sounds that when considered alone have no inherent value, but when arranged together through patterns over time can act as a reward, says Dr. Robert Zatorre, researcher at The Neuro and co-director of the International Laboratory for Brain, Music and Sound Research. “The integrated activity of brain circuits involved in pattern recognition, prediction, and emotion allow us to experience music as an aesthetic or intellectual reward.”

“The brain activity in each participant was the same when they were listening to music that they ended up purchasing, although the pieces they chose to buy were all different,” adds Dr. Salimpoor. “These results help us to see why people like different music — each person has their own uniquely shaped auditory cortex, which is formed based on all the sounds and music heard throughout our lives. Also, the sound templates we store are likely to have previous emotional associations.”

What happens in the brain to make music rewarding? (via myserendipities)

Joe’s take: This is interesting, because understanding the mechanisms of how our brains turn music into enjoyment is a pretty awesome question to look at. But it doesn’t answer the larger question: Why do we find those patterns enjoyable (or not) in the first place?? 

Music is just patterned sound. What is it that makes it cross the line to emotion? Is it dependent on our cultural experience? Or is it just THERE, man?!

Also, I may or may not be working on an episode about this for my YouTube channel so it’s kind of on my mind.

(via myserendipities)

Seeing the Brain With New CLARITY A new brain imaging technique called CLARITY allows neural structures to be reconstructed in three dimensions better than ever before. It does so by turning the brain “transparent”. Truly understanding the inner workings of the brain means studying not only how individual neurons function, but also how they are wired together. Even with techniques like the beautiful “brainbow”, untangling spaghetti-like long-range connections has proven difficult.  Stanford University neuroscientists have taken a step in that direction with their new CLARITY method. Neurons and other cells are normally labeled by sticking fluorescent tags on various proteins and other molecules that a researcher wants to study. That way we can literally see where and how they function. But looking into a three-dimensional brain is like peering into murky water: the fatty cell membranes and neuron sheaths just get in the way.  The Stanford researchers immobilized these mouse brains in a gel, then washed away all the murky muck. This left all the connections and proteins in their right place, free to be labeled in a clear block of brain Jell-O. For more: Head over to Nature News to read more, and be sure to watch their great, detailed video to find out more about how it was done. If you’re interested, here’s the research paper in this week’s Nature. 
Zoom Info
Seeing the Brain With New CLARITY A new brain imaging technique called CLARITY allows neural structures to be reconstructed in three dimensions better than ever before. It does so by turning the brain “transparent”. Truly understanding the inner workings of the brain means studying not only how individual neurons function, but also how they are wired together. Even with techniques like the beautiful “brainbow”, untangling spaghetti-like long-range connections has proven difficult.  Stanford University neuroscientists have taken a step in that direction with their new CLARITY method. Neurons and other cells are normally labeled by sticking fluorescent tags on various proteins and other molecules that a researcher wants to study. That way we can literally see where and how they function. But looking into a three-dimensional brain is like peering into murky water: the fatty cell membranes and neuron sheaths just get in the way.  The Stanford researchers immobilized these mouse brains in a gel, then washed away all the murky muck. This left all the connections and proteins in their right place, free to be labeled in a clear block of brain Jell-O. For more: Head over to Nature News to read more, and be sure to watch their great, detailed video to find out more about how it was done. If you’re interested, here’s the research paper in this week’s Nature. 
Zoom Info
Seeing the Brain With New CLARITY A new brain imaging technique called CLARITY allows neural structures to be reconstructed in three dimensions better than ever before. It does so by turning the brain “transparent”. Truly understanding the inner workings of the brain means studying not only how individual neurons function, but also how they are wired together. Even with techniques like the beautiful “brainbow”, untangling spaghetti-like long-range connections has proven difficult.  Stanford University neuroscientists have taken a step in that direction with their new CLARITY method. Neurons and other cells are normally labeled by sticking fluorescent tags on various proteins and other molecules that a researcher wants to study. That way we can literally see where and how they function. But looking into a three-dimensional brain is like peering into murky water: the fatty cell membranes and neuron sheaths just get in the way.  The Stanford researchers immobilized these mouse brains in a gel, then washed away all the murky muck. This left all the connections and proteins in their right place, free to be labeled in a clear block of brain Jell-O. For more: Head over to Nature News to read more, and be sure to watch their great, detailed video to find out more about how it was done. If you’re interested, here’s the research paper in this week’s Nature. 
Zoom Info

Seeing the Brain With New CLARITY

A new brain imaging technique called CLARITY allows neural structures to be reconstructed in three dimensions better than ever before. It does so by turning the brain “transparent”.

Truly understanding the inner workings of the brain means studying not only how individual neurons function, but also how they are wired together. Even with techniques like the beautiful “brainbow”, untangling spaghetti-like long-range connections has proven difficult. 

Stanford University neuroscientists have taken a step in that direction with their new CLARITY method. Neurons and other cells are normally labeled by sticking fluorescent tags on various proteins and other molecules that a researcher wants to study. That way we can literally see where and how they function. But looking into a three-dimensional brain is like peering into murky water: the fatty cell membranes and neuron sheaths just get in the way. 

The Stanford researchers immobilized these mouse brains in a gel, then washed away all the murky muck. This left all the connections and proteins in their right place, free to be labeled in a clear block of brain Jell-O.

For more: Head over to Nature News to read more, and be sure to watch their great, detailed video to find out more about how it was done. If you’re interested, here’s the research paper in this week’s Nature.