A bit of Computation, Math and Psychology

• Some statistics: Verbal intelligence by demographic: blog post
  
• An implementation of reversible computation gates using crabs: article and paper
• blog post on the optimal base for a number system w.r.t to number of digits in base and length of numbers
• High performance correlation techniques for time series (watch out, .ppt file)

Models for Cognition: Belief vs Connectionism; links on writing style

There's an interesting article about the consequences of connectionist models for the theory of beliefs. I think it's interesting that one counterexample is taken as a proof for the non-existence of beliefs, whereas a lot of further contraints (for biological and evolutionary reasons) might apply to require the construction to be more uniform/unique.

Another set of links regarding style of writing papers/thesis: Nine cirlces of latex hell, essential guide to latex and a rant on Strunk's Elements of Style.

On Human Brain Size; the Conciousness and Anaesthesia

A happy new year to all readers. I just got two articles with some references on further resources:

• Brain Size of Modern Humans is shrinking
• On the Workings of Anaesthesia

In near future, I will post some more math; I just haven't read all the things I stumbled on.

edit: let me squeeze in another link to an article:

Language learning is fast when words are connected with movements/gestures, which is also true for abstract words with no obvious gesture for it.

Reading Speed: Chinese vs English

I always wondered about mankind's languages and writing systems, one of the reasons I looked into Lojban (quite) a while ago. In an earlier post about writing systems I expressed my fascination about non-linear systems. But even with linear systems, we have alphabetic, syllabic and logographic systems. But it turns out the our systems are optimal in the sense that our cognitive abilities won't let us process more optimized systems, at least that is indicated by a study on reading speed with Chinese vs English - two major examples of logographic and alphabetic writing systems.

CogSci: The Role of Dreams in Great Discoveries

An article from scientific american about an "alternative state of consciousness" we enter when dreaming, allowing us to tackle problems we cannot understand consciously

CogSci: A Map of the Brain

Just a quick link to a short TED talk.

CogSci: Embodied Cognition and Consciousness

Arguing against a Descartian dualism and for a interconnection between brain and body, the article at scientific american blogs gives nice pointers and references for an embodiment point of view of cognition. It's interesting to see if there is some "mind" kind of core in the biomachine that the human being actually is. The normal bio-chemic interconnection between mind and body seems to be quite natural as the mind needs the body to survive (and stay healthy) in order to do so itself.

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At the thoughts on thoughts blog you'll find a 3 part post on the possible functions of consciousness which is an interesting topic to think about, especially keeping in mind the aforementioned article:

• http://charbonniers.org/2011/10/20/possible-functions-of-consciousness-1-leading-edge-of-memory/
• http://charbonniers.org/2011/10/29/possible-functions-of-consciousness-2-gate-to-meaning/
• http://charbonniers.org/2011/11/04/possible-functions-of-consciousness-3-working-memory/

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[edit] Slightly related, there is another article on the work our subconscious does for us at the discovery magazine. [/edit]

Epigenetics

I recently noticed that my knowledge on epigenetics is close to non-exsistent, so I decided to change that.

For entertainment, there is a documentation by BBC called "The ghost in your genes" which seems to cover the basic findings. I embed the first of 4 parts on youtube:


Moreover, there is an inaugural lecture by Professor Paro at the ETH Zürich.

There is also a bunch of papers in different levels of detail and specialization, I didn't read all of them yet:

• Jablonka, E. und Lamb, MJ. (2002): The Changing Concept of Epigenetics. In: Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 891
  
• Bradbury, J. (2003): Human Epigenome Project—Up and Running. In: PLoS Biol.

I'll update this post as I discover and read more good resources on this topic.

Cognitive Sciences and unfinished readings

I got the recommendation to read some chapters titled Structures, Learning and Ergosystems (available here) due to its heavy use of mathematical examples and outlined processes of thinking in mathematics. I got kind of upset with reading during the first 40 pages because of some imcomprehensible claims - at least I cannot see the validity of those, maybe it is just my limited and inadequate knowledge of cognitives sciences. It's a collection of facts without stating clear connections between them.
I found a cognitive scientist to whom I can relay questions, so I might post some questions with his answers later.

Meanwhile, I'm not done with the ealier mentioned book about Quantum Non-Locality and Relativity. I was slowed down by a Greman book about philosophy of science and Peter Singer's Practical Ethics.

I will write a short book review for the Quantum Non-Locality book as soon as I finish reading it.

Persistence of intuitive beliefs

At Helen's blog at the cognition and culture is a short article about intuitive vs scientific explanations. Some of the comments posted there are also interesting.

By the way, I included the snap shots feature. For those who dislike it, disabling it is quite easy via the drop down menu at the top right corner of each snap shot.

Futhermore I moved the few german-only postings to a new blog and won't bother readers of this one with more german writings.