Browsing: Neuroscience

We humans take a lot for granted. Pizza delivery, email, smartphones, dishwashers. All of this occurs in the background, making our lives simpler. None of it requires any explicit effort. Our minds also do a lot of subconscious work that we take for granted. Have you ever seriously thought about how you know that the […]

In Jasper Fforde’s lighthearted “Thursday Next” series of books, people can use a “prose portal” to enter the world of a book, to change the plot or kidnap a character. The prose portal is an imaginative metaphor for a familiar experience: feeling taken away by a narrative, sucked into a good book so that we […]

Music that upsets expectations is what makes your gray matter sing.

Any self-respecting pet owner will confidently claim that their dog or cat (or rabbit, or gerbil) seems sentient, exhibiting a distinct temperament and emotional responses. I know my many beloved pets over the years could feel pain, and fear, as well as love and trust. But are our pets truly conscious creatures? Or are we […]

What, exactly, makes our biology special?

A fascinating perspective on the psychology of the hero/villain spectrum of human character.

A fascinating animated documentary about audio-visual synesthesia, the rare neurological condition that leads stimulation in one sensory pathway to trigger an experience in another.

Five fantastic reads on why we err, what it means to be wrong, and how to make cognitive lemonade out of wrongness’s lemons.

Essential books that bridge music, emotion and cognition, peeling away at that tender intersection of where your brain ends and your soul begins.

A fascinating free documentary looking inside the extraordinary mind of Daniel Tammet, one of only about 50 autistic savants living in the world today.