Roger and me enjoying a fun time in Laguna Beach, California
Here is what I am reading today:
“How do we recognize a face? To date, most research has answered “holistically”: We look at all the features — eyes, nose, mouth — simultaneously and, perceiving the relationships among them, gain an advantage over taking in each feature individually. Now a new study overturns this theory. The researchers — Jason M. Gold and Patrick J. Mundy of the Indiana University and Bosco S. Tjan of the University of California Los Angeles — found that people’s performance in recognizing a whole face is no better than their performance with each individual feature shown alone. “Surprisingly, the whole was not greater than the sum of its parts,” says Gold. The findings appear in the journal Psychological Science, which is published by the Association for Psychological Science.”
“UT Southwestern Medical Center investigators have identified a genetic manipulation that increases the development of neurons in the brain during aging and enhances the effect of antidepressant drugs.”
“A new study in Science suggests that thrill-seeking is not limited to humans and other vertebrates. Some honey bees, too, are more likely than others to seek adventure. The brains of these novelty-seeking bees exhibit distinct patterns of gene activity in molecular pathways known to be associated with thrill-seeking in humans, researchers report.”
3 Comments
kleggoe · March 11, 2012 at 8:51 pm
In regards to the “insect personalities”.
I was very interested to read about the different personalities of the honey bees. I had no idea that they had differences of opinions; I thought that they were very passionate about maintaining the hive and the queen. It is very interesting to find that they have different gene expressions in regards to catecholamine, glutamate and GABA. It makes me wonder how fast their brains are evolving and adapting to their environment. It also makes me wonder if it has to do in any way to their slow extinction and the role it could play in the prevention of it.
kleggoe · March 11, 2012 at 8:58 pm
In regards to “genetic manipulation and learning”.
It is very interesting that they have found a protein that can have an effect on depressive and anxiety like behaviors. It would be beneficial to some to directly manipulate the adult neurogenesis. Unfortunately we have to also take into consideration the negative side effects. The NF1 gene can cause additional problems in your tissues and lead to big issues such as “hypertension and congenital heart disease.” This just reminds me that when trying to solve a problem you have to chose the lesser of two evils, because one always leads to another.
N8 · March 12, 2012 at 9:55 am
“recognizing faces”
This is quite fascinating, especially the use of the OBI test to measure and score participants’ success in perceiving the different faces and facial qualities. I tried reflecting on what I think of when I picture someone’s face in my mind and how I would recognize that person among other people. I’d have to agree with the study that I recognize an individual not by their whole face, but mores by individual features. When I think of what helps me recognize someone in a crowd the first characteristic that pops into my head is some sort of unique characteristic that makes that person look different or stand out. Maybe it is their hair-style/color, their facial expressions, eye size/alignment etc. It will be neat–as the article referenced–to see where this research goes in terms of face recognition for security.
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