Here’s a recent open access paper in Current Biology along with a journalistic write-up in The Harvard Gazette. The present research provides evidence for the existence of recurrent, perceptible features of three domains of vocal music across 86 human societies and for the striking consistency of form-function percepts across listeners from around the globe—listeners who presumably…
Frédérique de Vignemont’s latest. Cognitive scienceEmbodied cognitionFrédérique de VignemontPhilosophy of mind
The forthcoming RoboCup football (soccer) tournament in Montreal promises to be the largest yet. When established in 1997, the original mission was to field a team of robots capable of winning against the human soccer World Cup champions by 2050. Artificial intelligenceCognitive sciencecomplexitycomputational intelligenceEmbodied cognitionroboticsStigmergy
My chum, the incredibly prolific Stephen Turner, has his forthcoming book now listed. Cognitive sciencePhilosophy of mindSocial NeuroscienceSocial theorysociobiologysociology of knowledgeStephen Turner
Obit (of sorts) in LRB but well worth reading his IEP entry. Update: here is the NYT obit. I hate relativism. I hate relativism more than I hate anything else, excepting, maybe, fiberglass powerboats… surely, surely, no one but a relativist would drive a fiberglass powerboat. Cognitive sciencefunctionalismJerry FodorPhilosophy of mindrepresentationalism
Freely available paper in Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience. Humans routinely experience pleasure in response to higher order stimuli that confer no clear evolutionary advantage. Aesthetic responses through pursuit of and engagement with the arts activates the same reward network in the brain that responds to the basic, sensory pleasures associated with food, sex and drugs…
Photographer Sanne de Wilde’s The Island of the Colorblind investigates a Pacific atoll where an unusually high percentage of the population has total color blindness. This phenomenon will of course be familiar to those who have read Oliver Sacks’ book and have seen the accompanying documentary. Cognitive scienceColorOliver SacksphotographyqualiaSanne de Wilde
Here is the latest issue of JMB – Volume 38, Number 1, Winter 2017 Cognitive sciencejournal of mind and behaviorneurosciencephilosophical psychologyPhilosophy of mind
The deliciously scathing and independent-minded Susan Haack in Free Inquiry. “The cannibal among the missionaries” — love it! This the quality of mind that I want and admire whatever one’s political persuasion. AtheismCognitive sciencecoherentismEpistemologyidentity politicsnaturalismPhilosophypragmatismregressive leftscience and religionScientismsusan haack
This study from a few years back confirms what genuine music lovers already know to be the general trend in the homogenization of music. Full report in Scientific Reports 2, Article number: 521 (2012). Check out Thoughty2’s popular and rightfully scathing overview below. It was reassuring though to see some under 35s at a recent Pokey LaFarge show, Pokey himself…
manwithoutqualities 