Brilliant Blog

Intuition in Judgment and Decision Making

• Edited by Henning Plessner, Cornelia Betsch, Tilmann Betsch

The central goal of this volume is to bring the learning perspective into the discussion of intuition in judgment and decision making. The book gathers recent work on intuitive decision making that goes beyond the current dominant heuristic processing perspective. However, that does not mean that the book will strictly oppose this perspective. The unique perspective of this book will help to tie together these different conceptualizations of intuition and develop an integrative approach to the psychological understanding of intuition in judgment and decision making. Accordingly, some of the chapters reflect prior research from the heuristic processing perspective in the new light of the learning perspective.

This book provides a representative overview of what we currently know about intuition in judgment and decision making. The authors provide latest theoretical developments, integrative frameworks and state-of-the-art reviews of research in the laboratory and in the field. Moreover, some chapters deal with applied topics. Intuition in Judgment and Decision Making aims not only at the interest of students and researchers of psychology, but also at scholars from neighboring social and behavioral sciences such as economy, sociology, political sciences, and neurosciences.

ISBN: 9780805857412

Published October 01 2007 by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

I am delighted to have the opportunity to participate in LifeTwo’s "How to be Happier" week with this post. Happiness is still largely unchartered territory for neuroscience. It sounds like a hidden, elusive El Dorado. However, once one follows positive psychology research and Dr. Ben-Shahar’s advice, "The question should not be whether you are happy but what you can do to become happier", the happiness quest starts to become more tangible and workable according to latest neuroscience research.

We are now going to explore the four key concepts of Dr. Ben-Shahar's statement --- 1) "you", 2) "can", 3) "do", and 4) "happier" --- from a neuropsychological perspective.

1) What is "you"? According to latest scientific understanding, what we experience as "mind", our consciousness, our awareness and volition as human beings, emerges from the physical brain. So, if we want to refine our minds, we better start by understanding and training our brains. A very important reality to appreciate: each brain is unique, since it reflects our unique lifetime experiences. Scientists have already shown how even adult brains retain a significant ability to continually generate new neurons and literally rewire themselves. So, each of us is unique, with our own aspirations, emotional preferences, capacities, and each of us in continually in flux. A powerful concept to remind ourselves: "you" can become happier means that "you" are the only person who can take action and evaluate what works for "you". And "you" means the mind that emerges from your own, very personal, unique, and constantly evolving, brain. Which only "you" can train.

2) Why the use of "can"? Well, this reminds me a great quote by Spanish neuroscientist Santiago Ramon y Cajal, who said that "Every man can, if he so desires, become the sculptor of his own brain". Each of us has immense potential. However, in the same way that Michaelangelo’s David didn’t spontaneously appear out-of-the-blue one day, becoming happier requires attention, intention, and actual practice.

Attention: Every second, you choose what to pay attention to. You can focus on the negative and thereby train your brain to focus on the negative. You can choose to watch TV five hours in a row, thereby training your brain to become a passive spectator of events. Or you can do the opposite. Attention works outwards and inwards: you can pay attention to your own meaningful emotions or try to ignore them. Many times we are not aware of the choices we are really making and their implications, which is why practices like mindfulness meditation can help. Try this experiment on selective attention.

Intention and Mindset: Our frontal lobes (the area in blue in the image above) equip us to: 1) Understand our environments, 2) Set goals and define strategies to accomplish our goals, 3) Execute those strategies well. Becoming happier is as worthy an endeavor as our education and professional careers, or our efforts to be fit and slim by exercising our bodies. Please use those frontal lobes to define the goals that can work for you.

Practice. [LifeTwo's] Wesley mentioned the importance of "rituals" to make it easy to practice new skills. Great idea. Let’s talk more about that in the next point.

3) The critical word "do": You may have heard the expression "Cells that fire together wire together." Our brains are composed of billions of neurons, each of which can have thousand of connections to other neurons. Any thing you do in life is going to activate a specific constellation of neurons. Visualize one million neurons firing at the same time when you order your next cappuccino. Now, the more cappuccinos you order, the more those neurons will fire together, and therefore the more they will wire together (meaning that the connections between them become, literally, stronger), which then creates automatic-like behaviors. For example, try this experiment: Quick! say aloud the color you see in every word in the picture on the right. DON'T simply read the word. Tough, isn’t it? Well, that is because, during many years, you have trained your brain to read words. You can also choose to train your brain to say the color-with attention, intention and practice. This point has an enormous implication: whatever we do in life is, in practice, training our brains. How do you want to train your brain next?

4) The objective measure of "happier". Being "happy" is subjective. No scientist could look at you, read some instrument, and measure your happiness. But there are ways to measure, and train being "happier." For example, stress and anxiety are key obstacles to happiness. Appreciating the beauties of life often, and developing positive emotions, are key allies. Fascinating research is showing how emotional self-regulation happens, helping all of us identify those states as they happen (stress, anxiety, appreciation & positive emotions) and allow us to intervene and "regulate" our response as we wish. Some of the most promising applications are biofeedback programs (that measure body variables giving you great visual feedback in real-time on your level of stress, as in the image), meditation, and cognitive therapy. Take an extreme example: we probably all would agree that, if you happened to have visceral fear of spiders, suddenly facing a spider wouldn’t be one of the happiest moments in your life. In a 2003 paper on the impact of cognitive therapy on people with extreme spider fear, scientists observed how the fear induced by viewing film clips depicting spiders was correlated with significant activation of specific brain areas, like the amygdala (the "fear center of the brain") that, once activated, trigger specific body reactions (like the "fight or flight" physiological response). After the intervention was complete, however, viewing the same spider films did not provoke activation of those areas. Those individuals were able to "train their brains" and managed to reduce the brain response that typically triggers automatic stress responses. And we are talking about adults with extreme phobias.

Take-away

It's time to combine the respective quotations from positive psychologist Dr. Ben-Shahar and neuroscientist Santiago Ramon y Cajal. "The question should not be whether you are happy but what you can do to become happier" and "Every man can, if he so desires, become the sculptor his own brain."

In short, you can sculpt (train) your brain to become happier. Which brings us back to "you", what are you doing today to exercise your "happier" muscle?

(Graph Source: Klingberg et al, 2005)

Working memory is a key cognitive function that allows you to hold several units of information in mind—“online”—for brief periods of time, typically a few seconds, and manage them.

For example, if I tell you the 7 digits of my telephone number, would you remember them? and, could you tell them back to me...in reverse order?

Questions:

- What if that curve could be moved upwards?

- What activities may help kids and youth expand working memory?

- What activities can help adults over 30 reduce that rate of decline?

- And what is the relationship between working memory and the brain?

To Be Continued...

Roundup of recent articles:

1) Awards

-Very smart brains: Fun Slate article, Seven Ingenious Rules: How to become a MacArthur genius, once the 24 new MacArthur Fellows were announced (Dear reader: if you are a past, present or future winner, please forgive me for the title).

-The Tech Museum of Innovation Announces 2007 Awards (we had been nominated, didn't win).

2) Encouraging for the whole field: NASDAQ and NeuroInsights Launching Neurotech Index.

3) Cognitive Training Products: Hype or Hope for Maintaining Independence?.

Great June article we had missed, including a link to a 23-page PDF overview: Intellectual Functioning in Adulthood: Growth, Maintenance, Decline and Modifiability by K. Warner Shaie & Sherry L. Willis (San Francisco: American Society on Aging, 2005). 

 

4) Military Backs Reforms: "The military will expand psychological screening for both new recruits and active-duty service members, and will make safeguarding mental health part of the core training for leaders".

5) Ed Boyden, who leads the MIT leads the Neuroengineering and Neuromedia Group, has a new neurotechnology blog.

6) More blog carnivals: Education, Tangled Bank (Science).

There are several brain fitness topics where we still see a large disconnect between research and popular knowledge, and a major one is the relationship between memory and stress. Caroline and I collaborated on this post to bring you some context and tips. 

Our society has changed faster than our genes. Instead of being faced with physical, immediately life-threatening crises that demand instant action, these days we deal with events and illnesses that gnaw away at us slowly, that stress us out and that, believe it or not, end up hurting our memory and brain.

Dr. Robert Sapolsky, in an interview about his book Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers, points out that humans uniquely "can get stressed simply with thought, turning on the same stress response as does the zebra." But, the zebra releases the stress hormones through life-preserving action, while we usually just keep muddling along, getting more anxious by the moment.

What is the relationship between stress and memory? We all know chronic stress is bad for our heart, our weight, and our mood, but how about our memory? Interestingly, acute stress can help us focus and remember things more vividly. Chronic stress, on the other hand, reduce our ability to focus and can specifically damage cells in the hippocampus, a brain structure critical to encoding short term memory.

When is stress chronic? When one feels out of control. Irritable, anxious. While every individual varies in their response the type and quantity of stress, there are some things we can do to feel more in control of your environment. This sense of empowerment can lower stress, and as a result, help memory.

What are the best defenses against chronic stress, that will help our mind and memory remain healthy for life?

1- Exercise strengthens the body and can reduce the experience of stress, depression, and anxiety. Doing something cardiovascular at least twice a week is the minimum.

2- Relaxation through meditation, tai chi, yoga, or other techniques to slow respiration, slow metabolism, and release muscle tension. Simply investing 10 minutes per day can make a difference.

3- Biofeedback programs and games that provide real-time information and tracking, allowing one to learn effective techniques for reducing stress levels.

4- Appreciation. Make sure you appreciate the good things you have and have done, and your support group around you.

5- A good social network of friends, family, and even pets help foster trust, support, and relaxation.

6- This may be obvious...except that we may not do it precisely when we need it the most: Use a calendar to schedule important things. Give items a date and a priority.

7- This one too: Make a list of things that need to be done. Even if it's a long list. It is rewarding to cross off items as you complete them.

8- Prioritize. Ask yourself how important something truly is to you. Maybe you're stressing over something that you are better off just letting go. Do you really need to remember 25 new names from that party? Focus on the 5 you want to see again.

9- Get enough sleep so that you can recharge your batteries.
10- There is no solid evidence that Ginko Biloba helps. Of course, the placebo effect does, so if you are already taking it, you think it helps you, and you can afford it, well, just skip this point (which you will probably do, anyway). But please ask your doctor if you are taking prescription drugs; there may be interactions.

These are not magical cures, but habits that you can develop with practice to improve your memory and quality of life.

OK, my turn to practice #9.

2 great blog carnivals (selected collections of blog posts), hot from the oven:

Grand rounds: Health and Medicine

Encephalon: Neuroscience and Psychology

LifeTwo, the website focused on all aspects of midlife challenges, from midlife crisis to midlife career change, is presenting a "How to be Happy" week, based on the work of Harvard Professor Dr. Tal Ben-Shahar and his book "Happier". Dr. Ben-Shahar teaches Harvard's most popular class, on Positive Psychology.

Today is their Day 1: From Happy to Happier.

A number of good bloggers are collaborating: Happiness Project, The Brazen Careerist, MenAlive, The Dating Goddess, Boomer Chronicles, Man-o-Pause, AgingBackwards. I will be honored to provide a guest column, this Thursday, on how to identify and overcome some common brain-based obstacles to being happy, and how you apply the latest brain science developments in your own quest to be happier. In the meanwhile, you may enjoy the post On being positive, and check out Day 1: From Happy to Happier.

Enjoy the week!

The Dana Foundation kindly sent us a copy of the great book Best of the Brain from Scientific American, a collection of 21 superb articles published previously in Scientific American magazine. A very nicely edited and illustrated book, this is a must for anyone who enjoys learning about the brain and speculating about what the future will bring us.

Some essays, like the ones by Eric Kandel (The New Science of Mind), Fred Gage (Brain, Repair Yourself), Carl Zimmer (The Neurobiology of the Self) and that by Steven Hollon, Michael Thase and John Markowitz (Treating Depression: Pills or Talk), are both intellectual feasts and very relevant to brain fitness. And finally starting to percolate into mainstream consciousness.

Let me quote some quotes and reflections as I was reading the book a couple of days ago, in the courtyard of a beautiful French cafe in Berkeley:

1)  On Brain Plasticity (the ability of the brain to rewire itself), Fred Gage says: "Within the past 5 years, however, neuroscientists have discovered that the brain does indeed change throughout life-...The new cells and connections that we and others have documented may provide the extra capacity the brain requires for the variety of challenges that individuals face throughout life. Such plasticity offers a possible mechanism through which the brain might be induced to repair itself after injury or disease. It might even open the prospect of enhancing an already healthy brain's power to think and ability to feel"  

2)  and How Experience affects Brain Structure: Under the section title "A Brain Workout", Fred Gage says "One of the mot striking aspects of neurogenesis (Note: the creation of new neurons) is that experience can regulate the rate of cell division, the survival of newborn neurons and their ability to integrate into the existing neural circuits...The best way to augment brain function might not involve drugs or cell implants but lifestyle changes."

3) Biology of Mind: Eric Kandel provides a wonderful overview of the most interesting areas of cognitive neuroscience. Every student considering a career in neuroscience should read that article (and his book In Search of Memory). A great quote: "Since the 1980s the path toward merging mind and brain research has become clearer. As a result, psychiatry has taken on a new role, both stimulating and benefiting from biological thought. During the past few years, even members of the psychoanalytic community have taken on a keen interest in the biology of mind, acknowledging that every mental state is a brain state, that all mental disorders involve disorders of brain function. Treatments work when they alter the brain's structure and functioning".

4) And every intervention works better when well-designed and well-directed. The article Treating Depression: Pills or Talk includes "Quietly over the years, newer psychotherapeutic techniques have been introduced that may be just as good at alleviating acute distress in all but the most severely depressed patients. And some of the therapies provide advantages over medication alone, such as improving the quality of relationships or reducing the risk that symptoms will return after treatment is over)...most therapies blend cognitive and behavioral strategies and are often referred to as CBT. The goal is not to "think happy thoughts" but to become more accurate on one's self-assessments and more effective on one's behaviours. Recent variants such as mindfulness-based cognitive therapy incorporate strategies based on mediation and acceptance..." 

5) An example on that bridge between mind and brain that Kandel mentions? Fred Gage reminds us how "Stimulating neurogenesis could also lead to a new type of treatment for depression. Chronic stress is believed to be the most important casual factor in depression aside from a genetic predisposition to the disorder, and stress is known to restrict the number of newly generated neurons in the hippocampus (area of the brain involved in learning and memory)."

6) New technologies: There are many great articles on a variety of technologies, from TMS (Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation) to implanting electrodes for patients with specific disorders to neuroimaging and "smart pills".  Talking about these, Stephen Hall says that "Given that we are most likely 5 or 10 years away from "seeing what happens", we're probably destined to read a lot more about smart drugs before we actually have any pills on hands".

7) A reflection on Intelligence: Finally, there are a number of mentions of "intelligence" in a very loosely defined way. Ray Kurzweil says "Sometime early in the next century, the intelligence of machines will exceed that of humans". In the article about "Unleashing Creativity", Ulrich Kraft says "Intelligence is not a crucial component". These 2 sentences only seem to make sense with a very narrow, IQ-like, understanding of what "intelligence" is. Maybe we need a Biology of Intelligence, on top of the Biology of Mind?

Again, a very stimulating book. You can read more here. The Dana website also offers a list of recommended scientific books on the mind and brain.

If you are looking for a book with more practical advice, you may enjoy our review of The Dana Guide to Brain Health.

The Handbook of Aging and Cognition, 3rd edn

• Edited by Fergus I. M. Craik, Timothy A. Salthouse

Cognitive aging is a flourishing area of research. A significant amount of new data, a number of new theoretical notions, and many new research issues have been generated in the past 10 years. This new edition reviews new findings and theories, enables the reader to assess where the field is today, and evaluates its points of growth.

The chapters are organized to run from a consideration of the neural correlates of age-related changes in cognition, through the "mainstream" topics of perception, attention, memory, and language, to more applied areas, and finally to reviews of cognitive changes in the contexts of emotion, motivation, and personality. This edition has a broader scope than its predecessors, progressing from structural changes in the brain to a consideration of changes in the self concept and in social cognition.

ISBN: 9780805859904

Published October 03 2007 by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Brain Fitness doesn't require the use of expensive equipment. Your brain is enough. Today we are honored to interview Dr. Judith Beck on how cognitive techniques can be applied to develop a number of important mental skills. The latest application of these?. Losing weight. (Even if you are not interested in dieting, you will learn a lot by reading this interview. And make sure to read the fascinating last answer explaining this brain scan and how we can learn to manage fear). 

Dr. Judith Beck is the Director of the Beck Institute for Cognitive Therapy and Research, Clinical Associate Professor of Psychology in Psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania, and author of Cognitive Therapy: Basics and Beyond. Her most recent book is The Beck Diet Solution: Train Your Brain to Think Like a Thin Person.

Dr. Beck, thanks for your time. What does the Beck Institute do?

We have 3 main activities. One, we train practitioners and researchers through a variety of training programs. Two, we provide clinical care. Three, we are involved in research on cognitive therapy.

Please explain cognitive therapy in 2 sentences

Cognitive therapy, as developed by my father Aaron Beck, is a comprehensive system of psychotherapy, based on the idea that the way people perceive their experience influences their emotional, behavioral, and physiological responses. Part of what we do is to help people solve the problems they are facing today. We also teach them cognitive and behavioral skills to modify their dysfunctional thinking and actions.

I understand that cognitive therapy has been tested for many years in a variety of clinical applications. What motivated you to bring those techniques to the weight-loss field by writing The Beck Diet Solution?

Since the beginning, I have primarily treated psychiatric outpatients with a variety of diagnoses, especially depression and anxiety. Some patients expressed weight loss as a secondary goal in treatment. I found that many of the same cognitive and behavioral techniques that helped them overcome their other problems could also help them to lose weight—and to keep it off.

I became particularly interested in the problem of overweight and was able to identify specific mindsets or cognitions about food, eating, hunger, craving, perfectionism, helplessness, self-image, unfairness, deprivation, and others, that needed to be targeted to help them reach their goal.

What research results back your finding that those techniques help?

Probably the best published study so far is the randomized controlled study by Karolinska Institute’s Stahre and Halstrom (2005, reference below). The results were striking: nearly all 65 patients completed the program and this short-term intervention (10-week, 30-hours) showed significant long-term weight reduction, even larger (when compared to the 40 individuals in the control group) after 18 months than right after the 10-weeks program.

That sounds impressive. Can you explain what makes this approach so effective?

A unique feature is that the book doesn’t offer a diet but does provide tools to develop the mindset that is required for sustainable success, for modifying sabotaging thoughts and behaviors that typically follow people’s initial good intentions. I help dieters acquire new skills. We have sold over 70,000 books so far, and are planning to release a companion workbook this month to further help readers implement the 6-week program and track progress.

So, in a sense, we could say that your book is complementary to all other diet books.

Exactly—it will help readers at setting and reaching their long-term goals, assuming that the diet is healthy, nutritious, and well-balanced.

The main message of cognitive therapy overall, and its application in the diet world, is straight-forward: problems losing weight are not one’s fault. Problems simply reflect lack of skills--skills that can be acquired and mastered through practice. Dieters who read the book or workbook learn a new cognitive or behavioral skill every day for six weeks. They practice some skills just once; they automatically incorporate others for their lifetime.

What are the cognitive and emotional skills and habits that dieters need to train, and where your book helps?

Great question. That is exactly my goal: to show how everyone can learn some critical skills. The key ones are:

1) How to motivate oneself. The first task that dieters do is to write a list of the 15 of 20 reasons why they want to lose weight and read that list every single day.

2) Plan in advance and self-monitor behavior. A typical reason for diet failure is a strong preference for spontaneity. I ask people to prepare a plan and then I teach them the skills to stick to it.

3) Overcome sabotaging thoughts. Dieters have hundreds and hundreds of thoughts that lead them to engage in unhelpful eating behavior. I have dieters read cards that remind them of key points, e.g., that it isn’t worth the few moments of pleasure they’ll get from eating something they hadn’t planned and that they’ll feel badly afterwards; that they can’t eat whatever they want, whenever they want, in whatever quantity they want, and still be thinner; that the scale is not supposed to go down every single day; that they deserve credit for each helpful eating behavior they engage in, to name just a few.

4) Tolerate hunger and craving. Overweight people often confuse the two. You experience hunger when you’re stomach feels empty. Craving is an urge to eat, usually experienced in the mouth or throat, even if your stomach is full.

When do people experience cravings?

Triggers can be environmental (seeing or smelling food), biological (hormonal changes), social (being with others who are eating), mental (thinking about or imagining tempting food), or emotional (wanting to soothe yourself when you’re upset). The trigger itself is less important than what you do about it. Dieters need to learn exactly what to say to themselves and what to do when they have cravings so they can wait until their next planned meal or snack.

How can people learn that they don’t have to eat in response to hunger or craving?

I ask dieters, once they get medical clearance, to skip lunch one day, not eating between breakfast and dinner. Just doing this exercise once proves to dieters that hunger is never an emergency, that it’s tolerable, that it doesn’t keep getting worse, but instead, comes and goes, and that they don’t need to “fix” their usually mild discomfort by eating. It helps them lose their fear of hunger. They also learn alternative actions to help them change their focus of attention. Feel hungry? Well, try calling a friend, taking a walk, playing a computer game, doing some email, reading a diet book, surfing the net, brushing your teeth, doing a puzzle. My ultimate goal is to train the dieter to resist temptations by firmly saying “No choice,” to themselves, then naturally turning their attention back to what they had been doing or engaging in whatever activity comes next.

You said earlier that cravings come as an emotional reaction to stressful situations. Can you elaborate on that, and explain how cognitive techniques help?

In the short term, the most effective way is to identify the problem and try to solve it. If there’s nothing you can do at the moment, call a friend, do deep breathing or relaxation exercises, take a walk to clear your mind, or distract yourself in another way. Read a card that reminds you that you’ll certainly not be able to lose weight or keep it off if you constantly turn to food to comfort yourself when you’re upset. People without weight problems generally don’t turn to food when they’re upset. Dieters can learn to do other things, too.

And in the long term, I encourage people to examine and change their underlying beliefs and internal rules. Many people, for example, want to do everything (and expect others to do everything) in a perfect way 100% of the time, and that is simply impossible. This kind of thinking leads to stress.

The title of the book includes a “train your brain” promise. Can you tell us a bit about the growing literature that analyzes the neurobiological impact of cognitive therapy?

Yes, that is a very exciting area. For years, we could only measure the impact of cognitive therapy based on psychological assessments. Today, thanks to fMRI and other neuroimaging techniques, we are starting to understand the impact our actions can have on specific parts of the brain.

For example, take spider phobia. In a 2003 paper (Note: reference below) scientists observed how, prior to the therapy, the fear induced by viewing film clips depicting spiders was correlated with significant activation of specific brain areas, like the amygdala (Editor note: pics added for illustration. On the left, the yellow circle shows the location of the amygdala. On the right, the red color indicates the level of activation of the amygdala, the "fear center of the brain"). After the intervention was complete (one three-hour group session per week, for four weeks), viewing the same spider films did not provoke activation of those areas. Those individuals were able to “train their brains” and managed to reduce the brain response that typically triggers automatic stress responses. And we are talking about adults.

Dr. Beck, that is exactly what we find most exciting about this emerging field of neuroplasticity: the awareness that we can improve our lives by refining, “training” our brains, and the growing research behind a number of tools such as cognitive therapy. Thanks a lot for sharing your thoughts with us.

My pleasure.

--------------------------

(Dear FEED readers: this interview is doing well in Digg but we need your help to reach Digg's home page. If you have a Digg account, please click back to the site and vote! Thanks)

Research Papers mentioned

Stahre L, Hällström T. (2005). "A short-term cognitive group treatment program gives substantial weight reduction up to 18 months from the end of treatment. A randomized controlled trial" Eating and Weight Disorders. 2005 Mar;10(1):51-8.

Paquette, V., Levesque, J., Mensour, B., Leroux, J. M., Beaudoin, G., Bourgouin, P., et al. (2003). Effects of cognitive-behavioral therapy on the neural correlates of spider phobia. Neuroimage, 18, 401-409.

Prospective Memory

Cognitive, Neuroscience, Developmental, and Applied Perspectives

• Edited by Matthias Kliegel, Mark A. McDaniel, Gilles O. Einstein

Over the last decade, the topic of prospective memory – the encoding, storage and delayed retrieval of intended actions – has attracted much interest, and this is reflected in a rapidly growing body of literature: 350 scientific articles have been published on this topic since the appearance of the first edited book in 1996. In addition to the quantity, the quality and diversity of approaches to research in the field has also developed rapidly.

Prospective Memory provides an accessible, integrated guide to the expanded literature on the topic. While many of the authors also contributed to the 1996 book and can be regarded as the founders of current prospective memory research, other contributions come from authors who are relatively new to the field and who are examining broader aspects of prospective memory and, as a result, extending our understanding of it. Besides more generally reviewing the expanded literature, all authors have been encouraged to consider future directions for research and to raise questions that they believe all researchers in this area will need to address. The book is divided into four sections that together provide a broad and deep introduction to the cognitive, neuroscience, developmental, and applied aspects of prospective memory. Following the model of the first prospective memory volume, prominent memory researchers evaluate the papers in each section and comment more generally on the state of prospective memory research in the four major areas targeted.

ISBN: 9780805858587

Published December 19 2007 by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Bridging Cognitive Science and Education: Learning, Memory and Metacognition

A Special Issue of the European Journal of Cognitive Psychology

• Edited by Lisa Son, Andre Vandierendonck

The fields of cognitive science and education have worked hard to discover effective principles of learning with the goal of improving educational achievement. And although each has made significant advances, there has been, until today, a gap between the two disciplines. This special issue brings together researchers aiming to bridge laboratory data with real world learning practices, each providing recent and crucial information concerning the improvement of learning. The readings will allow both researchers and educators to understand strategies that would most benefit students by improving learning as well as the ability of learning to learn - or what has been defined as metacognition.

ISBN: 9781841698359

Published September 17 2007 by Psychology Press.

Growing media attention on the brain fitness field. At least on the "Healthy Aging" segment (I predict the media with catch up soon with developments in other areas, from cognitive training for kids and adults with ADD/ ADHD to stroke and TBI rehabilitation, to peak performance for corporate training).

First, a superb article by Leslie Walker at the Washington Post: Cross-Training Your Brain to Maintain Its Strength

Quotes: "A growing body of research suggests that mental activity in middle age and earlier can help later in life. As a result, Web sites such as HappyNeuron.com are springing up to offer online games to people of all ages, while blogs like SharpBrains.com provide commentary on the fledgling industry." (Note: we can also provide commentary on the commentary!)

"People who engage in very challenging tasks --- not just in work but during leisure activities such as reading, crossword puzzles, bridge, chess and travel --- tend to slow down their mental aging process very significantly," says Breznitz, who is also a member of Israel's legislature and has developed a brain-training program called MindFit."

"Also contributing to the brain workout boom are state-of-the-art imaging techniques that have allowed scientists to validate a theory developed decades ago. By taking detailed pictures of brain neurons, scientists watch parts of the brain that had seemed dormant light up and assume new responsibilities in response to stimuli. Theoretically, this means brain decay can be halted or even reversed."

"The brain is constantly rewiring and recalibrating itself in response to what you do," says Henry Mahncke, who holds a PhD in neuroscience and is vice president of Posit Science, the San Francisco developer of the Brain Fitness software. "It remakes itself into a more efficient operation to do the things you ask it to do."

Comments: the article touches many key points. I especially enjoy the quote "To be effective, scientists say mental activity must become progressively more challenging. Otherwise, the brain adjusts and learns to perform repetitive tasks with less effort", a key message I make often in my lectures to explain why well-designed programs can be more effective than doing crossword puzzle number 512,789. The article also relates how many retirement communities and senior centers and individuals are trying out the new brain fitness programs coming to market, and shows some healthy skepticism on the state of the research. Now, this is an invitation to the reporter to interview neuropsychologist Dr. Elkhonon Goldberg to get the full picture of the science behind the field, since these programs haven't appeared in a vacuum. Our 10-Question Evaluation Checklist can provide useful guidance to anyone considering a program.

Boomers use online brain games to stave off dementia (AccountingWeb)

Quotes: "The Internet offers a plethora of brain games for those who don't subscribe to a daily newspaper or don't want to purchase games. AARP, for example, offers plenty of free games on its site. More games appear at SharpBrains.com, including a page that contains the Top Ten Neuroscience Brainteasers, and you can sign up to have the College Board e-mail you the SAT question of the day."

"The generation that refuses to age is not going to sit back and wait for Alzheimer's Disease and other signs of dementia to take hold. Instead, savvy Baby Boomers are expanding their minds (no, not the way they did in the 60s) with the aid of the computer, puzzles, and games. A brain health movement is sweeping the nation, and 60+-year-olds are riding the crest of the wave."

Comments: we don't mind at all being quoted in the same paragraph as the AARP and the College Board. It shows the breadth of the brain fitness movement and, who knows, maybe we will grow so big one day...

Some other news pieces, more gaming oriented, at The Consumerist, Conde Nast Tech Observer and MyGamer, based on my 11 Neuroscience Interviews.

It is fascinating to participate and see in real-time how the Health and Gaming markets are finding a clear point of convergence. Brain fitness is becoming one of the most promising real-world applications of the Serious Games. In Key Health Industry Organizations Join Serious Games Community, Eliane says 

“One of our goals with the Games for Health Project was to see key health industry organizations, such as Humana, join the community and make their considerable knowledge, leadership, and partnering resources available,” said Ben Sawyer. “More importantly, Humana has expressed its dedication to understanding the industry and getting it done.”

Interesting times.

A Spanish friend and neuroscientist just reminded me of a great quote by Santiago Ramon y Cajal (1852-1934): "todo hombre puede ser, si se lo propone, escultor de su propio cerebro".

Which means: "Every man can, if he so desires, become the sculptor his own brain".

Which really means: "Each of us can literally refine the structure and function of our brains, the same way we can do so with the rest of our body muscles" (my 2 cents...).

Our daily thoughts and actions, learnings, meditation, cognitive therapy, the growing number of software-based programs, and more, are "sculpting" tools...no more no less than tools. Good for some goals and contexts, like improving concentration and memory, becoming "sharper", helping protect our minds from decline, or manage stress better. 

I just bought Cajal's autobiography, titled Recollections of My Life (thanks, Mind Hacks). Will be writing about it in a month or so-I have too many books on the table now, and only one brain.

If you want to read some good neuroscience blog posts, you can find a nice collection in the latest edition of Encephalon, hosted by Dr Deborah Serani.

For general science ones, try Tangled Bank. For education, enjoy The Education Carnival.

Finally, I will be hosting the next edition of the Carnival of the Capitalists (I don't really love the name...but it is the oldest and best blog carnival for business and economics). If you have some good posts, please submit them here.

For some additional thoughts on sculpting brains, intelligence, and becoming smarter, you can check this post.

Crosslinguistic Perspectives on Argument Structure

Implications for Learnability

• Edited by Melissa Bowerman, Penelope Brown

This book offers a unique interdisciplinary perspective on argument structure and its role in language acquisition. Drawing on a broad range of crosslinguistic data, this volume shows that languages are much more diverse in their argument structure properties than has been realized.

The volume is the outcome of an integrated research project and comprises chapters by both specialists in first language acquisition and field linguists working on a variety of lesser-known languages. The research draws on original fieldwork and on adult data, child data, or both from seventeen languages from eleven different language families. Some chapters offer typological perspectives, examining the basic structures of a given language with language-learnability issues in mind. Other chapters investigate specific problems of language acquisition in one or more languages. Taken as a whole, the volume illustrates how detailed work on crosslinguistic variation is critical to the development of insightful theories of language acquisition.

Crosslinguistic Perspectives on Argument Structure integrates important contemporary issues in linguistics and language acquisition.

ISBN: 9780805841947

Published December 19 2007 by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Given the growing number of articles in the popular press mentioning words such as "neuroplasticity", "fMRI" and "cognitive reserve", let's review some key findings, concepts and terms.

Thanks to new neuroimaging techniques, regarded “as important for neuroscience as telescopes were for astronomy”, neuroscientists and cognitive psychologists have been finding that the brain has a number of "core capacities" and "mental muscles" that can be exercised through novelty, variety and practice, and that exercising our brain can influence the generation of new neurons and their connections. Brain exercise is being recognized, therefore, as a critical pillar of brain health, together with nutrition, physical exercise and stress management.

Previous beliefs about our brain and how it works have been proven false. Some beliefs that have been debunked include claims that adult brains can not create new neurons (shown to be false by Berkeley scientists Marian Diamond and Mark Rosenzweig, and Salk Institute’s Fred Gage), notions that working memory has a maximum limit of 6 or 7 items (debunked by Karolinska Institute’s Torkel Klingberg), and assumptions that the brain’s basic processes can not be reorganized by repeated practice (UCSF’s Drs. Paula Tallal and Michael Merzenich). The "mental muscles" we can train include attention, stress and emotional management, memory, visual/ spatial, auditory processes and language, motor coordination and executive functions like planning and problem-solving.

Mental stimulation is important if done in the right supportive and engaging environment. Stanford’s Robert Sapolsky has proven that chronic stress and cortical inhibition, which may be aggravated due to imposed mental stimulation, may prove counterproductive. Having the right motivation is essential.

A surprising and promising area of scientific inquiry is Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR). An increasing number of neuroscientists (such as University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Richard Davidson) are investigating the ability of trained meditators to develop and sustain attention and visualizations and to work positively with powerful emotional states and stress through the directed mental processes of meditation practices.

And now, some keywords:

Brain Fitness Program: structured set of brain exercises, usually computer-based, designed to train specific brain areas and processes in targeted ways.

Chronic Stress: ongoing, long-term stress, which blocks the formation of new neurons and negatively impacts the immune system's defenses.

Cognitive training (or Brain Fitness Training): the field of brain exercises designed to help work out specific “mental muscles”. The principle underlying cognitive training is to help improve "core" abilities, such as attention, memory, processing spped, problem-solving.

Cognitive Reserve (or Brain Reserve): theory that addresses the fact that individuals vary considerably in the severity of cognitive aging and clinical dementia. Mental stimulation, education and occupational level are believed to be major active components of building a cognitive reserve that can help resist the attacks of mental disease.

fMRI: functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is a non-invasive neuroimaging technique that enables researchers see images of changing blood flow in the brain associated with neural activity. This allows images to be generated that reflect which structures are activated (and how) during performance of different tasks.

Heart Rate Variability (HRV): describes the frequency of the cardiac cycle, and is one of the best predictors of stress and anxiety. Our hear rate is not "flat" or constant: HRV measures the pattern of change.

Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR): yoga and meditation practices designed to enable effective responses to stress, pain, and illness.

Neurogenesis: the process by which neurons are created all throughout our lives.

Neuroimaging: techniques that either directly or indirectly image the structure, function, or pharmacology of the brain. Recent techniques (such as fMRI) have enabled researchers to understand better the living human brain.

Neuroplasticity: the brain's ability to reorganize itself by forming new connections throughout life.

PubMed: very useful tool to search for published studies. "PubMed is a service of the U.S. National Library of Medicine that includes over 16 million citations from MEDLINE and other life science journals for biomedical articles back to the 1950s. PubMed includes links to full text articles and other related resources."

Working memory: the ability to keep information current for a short period while using this information. Working memory is used for controlling attention, and deficits in working memory capacity lead to attention problems. Recent research has proven that working memory training is possible and helpful for people with ADD/ ADHD.

Any other keyword you would like explained?

We are glad to see that MindFit is finally making it into the popular press, at least in the UK. The program is making big news in the UK (BBC, Times, Daily Telegragh, Guardian...) because Baroness Susan Greenfield, director of the Royal Institution and a well-respected neuroscientist, is endorsing it. We evaluated it last year and liked what we saw, based on our 10-Question Checklist. Now, remember that no program is "best", but that different programs can be more appropriate for specific people and specific goals, so read the checklist first and take a lot at other programs too if you are in the market for "brain training".

MindFit is a software-based assessment and training program for 14 cognitive skills important for healthy aging. We typically recommend it for people over 50 (up to any age, you simply need to know how to use a computer and a mouse) who want a novel and varied mental workout.

The program has 21 exercises that train 14 cognitive skills. The program only works in Windows systems (Mac users: you may want to take a look at Lumosity online games).

You can buy this program from a number of online shops. If you are in North America and choose to purchase it here, we will add our Brain Fitness eGuide: Answers to Your Top 25 Questions to your order free of charge (a $11.95 value).  Below you have some demos, so you get a sense of the types of exercises we are talking about. Enjoy!

The "Inside and Outside" task was designed to train your divided attention skills. Divided attention is the ability to pay attention to more than one thing at a time.

The "Two in One" task was designed to train your ability to perform two tasks simultaneously.

The "Picasso" task is an example of how the MindFit program trains your visual short-term memory, as well as your ability to rebuild a pattern from its part