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Artificial Psychology

The Quest for What It Means to Be Human

• By Jay Friedenberg

Is it possible to construct an artificial person? Researchers in the field of artificial intelligence have for decades been developing computer programs that emulate human intelligence. This book goes beyond intelligence and describes how close we are to recreating many of the other capacities that make us human. These abilities include learning, creativity, consciousness, and emotion.

The attempt to understand and engineer these abilities constitutes the new interdisciplinary field of artificial psychology, which is characterized by contributions from philosophy, cognitive psychology, neuroscience, computer science, and robotics. This work is intended for use as a main or supplementary introductory textbook for a course in cognitive psychology, cognitive science, artificial intelligence, or the philosophy of mind. It examines human abilities as operating requirements that an artificial person must have and analyzes them from a multidisciplinary approach.

The book is comprehensive in scope, covering traditional topics like perception, memory, and problem solving. However, it also describes recent advances in the study of free will, ethical behavior, affective architectures, social robots, and hybrid human-machine societies.

ISBN: 9780805855845

Published March 17 2008 by Psychology Press (formerly published by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates).

Do you know where words are stored in your brain...?

In your temporal lobe! Here is a drawing of the brain so you can see where your temporal lobe is (in green) on a profile view of the right side of your brain.

As you know your brain has two sides (two hemispheres) connected by the corpus callosum. So you have one temporal lobe on each side of the brain.

If you are right-handed, your language is stored mostly in your left temporal lobe. If you are left-handed, you are not so lateralized and your language is stored a bit on both sides of your brain in the temporal lobes.

Words in the brain are not stored randomly. They seemed to be quite organized. Research has shown that words that are often heard together (such as salt and pepper) or words that share some meaning (such as nurse and doctor) are connected or associated in the brain. Once you hear one, the other is activated.

Here is a brain exercise whose aim is to stimulate the connections or associations between words in your temporal lobe.

In the left column you have a pair of words. Your goal is to find a third word that is connected or associated with both of these two words.

The first pair is PIANO and LOCK. The answer is KEY. The word key is connected with both the word piano and the word lock: there are KEYS on a piano and you use a KEY to lock doors….

Key is what is called a homograph: a word that has more than one meaning but is always spelled the same.

Ready to stimulate connections in your temporal lobe(s)? Enjoy! (Solutions are below. Please don't check them until you have trid to solve all the pairs!)

1. LOCK – PIANO

2. SHIP – CARD

3. TREE – CAR

4. SCHOOL – EYE

5. PILLOW – COURT

6. RIVER – MONEY

7. BED – PAPER

8. ARMY – WATER

9. TENNIS – NOISE

10. EGYPTIAN – MOTHER

11. SMOKER – PLUMBER

--- This article was written by Pascale Michelon, Ph. D., for SharpBrains.com. Dr. Michelon has a Ph.D. in Cognitive Psychology and has worked as a Research Scientist at Washington University in Saint Louis, in the Psychology Department. She conducted several research projects to understand how the brain makes use of visual information and memorizes facts. She is now an Adjunct Faculty at Washington University, and teaches Memory Workshops in numerous retirement communities in the St Louis area.

Solutions

1. LOCK – PIANO > KEY

2. SHIP – CARD > Deck

3. TREE – CAR > Trunk

4. SCHOOL – EYE > Pupil (Exam and Private are also possible)

5. PILLOW – COURT > Case

6. RIVER – MONEY > Bank (Flow is also possible)

7. BED – PAPER > Sheet

8. ARMY – WATER > Tank

9. TENNIS – NOISE > Racket

10. EGYPTIAN – MOTHER > Mummy

11. SMOKER – PLUMBER > Pipe

Neuropsychological Research

A Review

• Edited by Peter Mariën, Jubin Abutalebi

In a broad sense, neuropsychology stands for the branch of brain sciences that aims to understand how the structure and function of the brain relate to specific cognitive and psychological processes. The idea of developing a research field somewhere between neurology and cognitive psychology emerged in the 1960s as a result of studies conducted by both disciplines which, although using different methodologies and tools, were analysing the same issues. Neuropsychology particularly puts emphasis on the clinical and experimental study of the cognitive effects of brain injury or neurological diseases, taking models of normal cognitive functioning into account.

Neuropsychological Research: A Review provides a meticulous overview of what has been achieved in the field of cognitive neuropsychology from its early beginnings in the 1960s and 1970s to the present day. Authors include some of the pioneers involved in the genesis of neuropsychology as an independent and distinct field of neuroscience. The comprehensive coverage includes language disorders, skilled movement disorders, recognition disorders, attentional and executive disorders, visuo-perceptual disorders, memory disorders, and neurodegenerative diseases.

This fascinating text forms an enjoyable tribute to the rich heritage of neuropsychology, and will be essential reading for researchers and students of neuropsychology, clinical psychology, cognitive psychology, and behavioural neuroscience.

ISBN: 9781841696201

Published February 07 2008 by Psychology Press.