Xurtio

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BS Physics (received)

MS Computational Neuroscience (received)

PhD Theoretical Neuroscience (attending/pursuing)

	2,127 reputation	bio	website		visits	member for	11 months
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88 Comments

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Mar 5	comment	What are the effects of social rejection on the brain? NeuroSynth (a meta analysis of fMRI results from several studies) tags several parts of the brain in association with the word "pain". I wonder which parts are activated in social rejection and what part they play in physical pain.
Mar 4	comment	What is the bias/thought process that results in distrust of “formal” knowledge in favor of “folk” knowledge? This sounds like assimilation vs accomodation
Feb 7	comment	How do humans perceive height or vertical drop? I'd speculate that this is the kind of higher order context processing that we know little about. I don't think we particularly process distance different, but that we know that gravity and distance together can hurt/kill us. We can predict the outcome and it scares us.
Feb 6	comment	What is the proper term for the synchronization of eye movements? Convergence refers specifically to eyes pointing more toward each other as objects enter nearfield, fusion is when each eye has its own image but a single image is perceived.
Feb 3	comment	Psychology of timbre processing Ah yeah, I agree. Too much emergent complexity involved with the second bullet point which means lots of degeneracy
Feb 3	comment	What are some examples of emergent abilities? I think this needs more initial research because it appears vague and speculative as it stands.
Feb 2	comment	Psychology of timbre processing For judgments, you could have one group rate some fixed set of qualities fir each timbre and have another group answer in their own words in a paragraph, then perform quantitative phenomenology analysis. The second group would help avoid a priming bias.
Feb 2	comment	Psychology of timbre processing I think you probably could to some extent. If you have people judge the quality of several timbres and see if there is a particular trend for timbres with sharper attacks for instance.
Feb 2	comment	Psychology of timbre processing I Mostly agree with Chuck. But I think the physics of the timbre are important to decomposing timbre so that we can talk about what different characteristics create what different effects. The major characteristics of timbre are: attack, decay, and sustain. They basically describe the shape of the envelope. Also important are the harmonics of the instrument (for instance, on a violin, the strings themselves have harmonics but the body of the violin also resonates). I think part of the richness of the violin as how intense the timbre is. The strings are constantly being perturbed.
Jan 31	comment	Are ambidextrous people better at multitasking? Looks like that idea has been challenged: www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0028393208000675
Jan 31	comment	Are ambidextrous people better at multitasking? I actually remember reading about deficits in ambidextrous people. Try searching for that. If I have time and remember, ill look into it next time I'm at a computer.
Jan 30	comment	What is the fastest language to think in? speculation: chinese language uses tones (so the same word may have five different meanings depending on your tone). So if parallel processing tone and semantics doesn't cost any extra time, then I'd think that gives it a significant advantage in terms of efficiency.
Jan 28	comment	What part of the brain locks up when a man is in the presence of an extremely attractive female? Sure, just syntax difference (what locks up?)
Jan 28	comment	What part of the brain locks up when a man is in the presence of an extremely attractive female? I would argue that the amygdala is not what locks up, but that the amgydala becomes active and locks up other parts of the brain.
Jan 27	comment	Does the Hodgkin-Huxley Model take into account the action of the ion pumps (e.g., Na-K-ATPase)? If we're not crossing terminologies here, the refractory period comes from a variable (the inactivation curve described by h) and refers to the time-delayed inactivation of individual ion species channels after being activated. It has no direct dependence on the ion concentration
Jan 21	comment	Is there experimental support for John Perry's “Theory of Structured Procrastination”? totally speculative here, but I wonder if it has to do with an insensitive amygdala. I.e. the amygdala is somewhat of an emotional signifcance detector. For those of us that procrastinate, I wonder if it just requires a closer due date because of our higher amygdala threshold, before we are motivated to start working on things.
Jan 6	comment	Do widespread brain toxins explain violence rates? There's many strong evolutionary arguments for aggression...
Jan 6	comment	Evidence that qualia are not the same as physical processes? Certainly many processes happen in the brain that are not consciously perceived, but there's little evidence to suggest conscious perception can happen without neural correlates. There's certainly a lack of information about particular correlates, but this doesn't prove the negative. Unfortunately... you can never prove a negative. All you can do is demonstrate a lack of evidence over and over again. Instead, we generally find evidence if we dig deep enough.
Jan 6	comment	How are qualia localized in consciousness? I would challenge some of your presumptions. Brain locality is important for processes like "volume transmission" in which a region of the brain experiences changes. You're limiting your thinking to "synaptic transmission" which is, in my opinion, a very limited view. Furthermore, the system self organizes, based on the length of axons so that timing is appropriate. If you suddenly lengthen the axon, you're going to get a delay in the post-synaptic signal that could mess with parallel signal processing in all kinds of ways.
Jan 2	comment	Any research on right-hand/left-hand based preferences when interacting with an interface? well, like it is here and on Reddit. Content on left, sidebar on right. I guess I actually expect menus to be at the top.