PsychBLOG.co.uk

With $55 million, a collection of frozen human brains and robots capable of processing 192 brain slices a day, the Allen Brain Institute is attempting to do the impossible: systematically map out the expression patterns of more than 20,000 genes that make our grey matter tick.

The science behind the techniques isn’t new. Researchers have probed neurons with specific RNA bits in a revealing game of genetic hide-and-seek for 40 years. But the speed and scope with which they’re tackling the problem with specially-constructed robots that automate most of the data-gathering and analysis is unprecedented. When the Atlas is finished in 2012, scientists will start untangling the whys and hows of our neural network.

From Wired: Creating an Atlas of the Human Mind.

“… Rational choice theory predicts that people will not gamble, thus it is theorised that regular gamblers gamble because they make the wrong decisions – that cognitive bias (irrational thinking) distorts their reasoning. The aim of this study was to increase understanding of the cognitive processes and behaviour of persistent fruit machine gamblers.”

Almost 18 months ago I interviewed Mark Griffiths about his 1994 research into cognitive bias and skill [...]

We all like to think that we have good memories for events and that if we were to be witness to a crime or incident that we would be able to recall in detail the events of the day. However our memories are not that reliable at all.  This has implications on many levels, but especially in the courtroom and with the police.

For example:
“Some researchers in Bologna demonstrate the [...]

There has been an almost widespread consensus amongst social psychologists that tyranny triumphs either because ordinary people blindly follow orders or else because they mindlessly conform to powerful roles. Much of this consensus has been influenced by the work of Milgram and Zimbardo

However, more recently, British psychologists S. Alexander Haslam and Stephen D. Reicher have written numerous papers criticising these views. They argue that Milgram and Zimbardo were wrong [...]

This video clip is not taken from the original 1950s experiments but is in fact a ‘made for telly’ version, from I think (guessing at the fashion of the actors). the late 1970s. The acting isn’t bad though.

Solomon Asch was interested to find out about conformity and in particular, the circumstances in which people would be more likely to conform.

In 1955 Asch conducted a classic experiment on majority influence. [...]

Questions to make your brain go ouch?
The Little Book of Thunks: 260 questions to make your brain go ouch!: 260 Questions to Make Your Brain Go Ouch! The first question I had to ask myself when I found out about this book, and I’m sure you’re doing the same thing now, was: what is a thunk? After a bit of trawling I found the website the compliments this [...]

Can you find the 12 faces? I only count 11 http://bit.ly/e7Mz4 #
Tuesday BBC1 9.00 10 Things You Need to Know About Sleep http://bit.ly/QrDhu #
Tuesday BBC2 also 9.00 Horizon: How Violent Are You? http://bit.ly/18wS17 #
Man flu – it really does exist! http://bit.ly/13FqOm #
The Internet Helps Teenagers with Social Relationships http://bit.ly/tBJSx #

There’s a nice little two part piece on The Situationist which has Zimbardo commenting on Milgram’s work. Well worth a read.
“Milgram left us with a vital legacy of brilliant ideas that began with those centered on obedience to authority and extended into many new realms—urban psychology, the small-world problem, six degrees of separation, and the Cyrano effect, among others—always using a creative mix of methods. Stanley Milgram was a [...]

At this very moment in time there are 82,813 people in prisons in the UK (weekly updates of prison UK populations) whereas in February 2004 there were only 69,122. We are punishing more-and-more people every year with prison but is it effective (a topic for another post) and does it only punish those who were at fault?

In the first known study of its kind, University of Michigan researchers found [...]

We all know the power of role models and I have written about the effect of role modes on behaviour many times before: from the moving ‘Children See, Children Do’ campaign to talking about the effectiveness of the pictures of death and destruction that now adorn our fag packets.

All these ideas are supported by Bandura and his Social Learning Theory which proposes that children especially learn their behaviours through [...]