The internet is awash with videos that claim to use 'binaural beats' to improve your focus or relieve stress. But while they can influence your brain, the touted mood-enhancing effects may not be.
With the ubiquity and availability of devices connected to the internet, access to pornography is easier than it has ever been.
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Cognitive neuroscience finds that regular consumption of pornography affects the centres of the brain responsible for will power, impulse control and morality.
When you’re looking for a destination, you might need to cut down the volume.
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Do you ever find you suddenly need to turn off the radio so you can concentrate on what you're doing? It's because you only have a finite amount of attention, for particular types of tasks at least.
A lifetime of memories… but not always readily accessible.
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The 'contexual-binding theory' suggests memories are easier to retrieve when your brain is in a similar context to when the memory was first formed. Food for thought if you're cramming for an exam.
It gets easier with practice.
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Despite its huge complexity, your brain directs its neural traffic in relatively straightforward ways when approaching cognitively demanding tasks such as puzzles.
What makes a brain tick is very different from how computers operate.
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Brain functions integrate and compress multiple components of an experience, including sight and smell – which simply can't be handled in the way computers sense, process and store data.
Have you ever walked into a room and realised you can’t remember what you were looking for? We tend to do this more when we are thinking of a few things at once or doing two things at the same time.
Researcher Taimur Ahmed holds the newly designed chip.
Our brains create new memories, and forget old ones, by forging and breaking connections between nerve cells. Now researchers can do something similar using a light-sensitive electronic chip.
Researchers have ideas how to probe consciousness in another.
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The only consciousness you can ever be certain about is your own. But there are different types of clues that could hint at what's happening within another entity.
How can both be sure the other hit it out?
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Sports fans see it all the time: two people arguing about a split-second difference in who did what. New research suggests human beings have a bias to perceive their own actions as happening sooner.
Understanding how and where memory functions in the brain can lead to discoveries in treating memory disorders.
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Meaning and purpose aren't the same, but one does drive the other.
There are currently no effective treatments for Alzheimer’s disease, which causes may elders to live their last years without recognizing their loved ones, and unable to care for themselves.
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Companies may benefit when customers create content, provide feedback and do busywork once done by paid employees, but what about the customers themselves – all of us?
Simplifying a problem can make it easier to solve.
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