Kestrell

To be read: Ways of Being by James Bridle

2022-06-07T11:23:28Z

Review by Cory Doctorow
https://doctorow.medium.com/james-bridles-ways-of-being-e1a43bf6d013

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The Guardians: An MIT video game to improve mental health

2021-09-25T14:39:57Z

Kes: Another game which I wish was accessible, but I'm glad others have access to it.g

https://www.fastcompany.com/90666879/the-guardians-innovation-by-design-2021

Excerpt:

There are things we should all do, ranging from managing our finances to reading more books. But let’s be honest: Playing video games is more fun than balancing a checkbook, and more seductive than reading Tolstoy.

That’s why Craig Ferguson, lead platforms engineer at MIT’s Affective Computing group, has combined the two ideas into a groundbreaking app called The Guardians: Unite the Realms. It’s the winner of Fast Company’s 20201 Innovation by Design award in the Wellness category.

The Guardians—available for free download on iOS and Android—is basically a Trojan horse mental health app. At first glance, it’s like any monster-collecting and leveling game you know, filled with cartoonish magical creatures you need to assemble to take down evil. However, the only way to actually advance in the game is to step out of it—and accept real-life, on-your-honor tasks to complete.

Scientists call these tasks “behavioral activation.” Whether it’s exercise like going on a walk, or feeding your artistic side by drawing a picture, these positive experiences are proven therapy for anxiety and depression. Plus, they can help you acquire new skills or hobbies you might always find yourself putting off. So behavioral activation is a means of self-improvement, too.

....Meanwhile, Ferguson is planning to release a more polished sequel later this year, which will usher players from an enchanted forest to a tropical island. What a wonderful opportunity for us all to get hooked on our own mental health.

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New bionics center established at MIT with $24 million gift

2021-09-25T14:14:04Z

Kes: I totally fangirl for Hugh Herr and, if you are interested in prosthetics, I encourage you to go read the rest of this article, and then go read more about Hugh Herr's work.

excerpt

Interdisciplinary research center funded by philanthropist Lisa Yang aims to mitigate disability through technologies that marry human physiology with electromechanics.
September 23, 2021
https://news.mit.edu/2021/new-bionics-center-established-mit-24-million-gift-0923

With the establishment of the new K. Lisa Yang Center for Bionics, MIT is pushing forward the development and deployment of enabling technologies that communicate directly with the nervous system to mitigate a broad range of disabilities. The center’s scientists, clinicians, and engineers will work together to create, test, and disseminate bionic technologies that integrate with both the body and mind.

The center is funded by a $24 million gift to MIT’s McGovern Institute for Brain Research from philanthropist Lisa Yang, a former investment banker committed to advocacy for individuals with visible and invisible disabilities. Her previous gifts to MIT have also enabled the establishment of the K. Lisa Yang and Hock E. Tan Center for Molecular Therapeutics in Neuroscience, Hock E. Tan and K. Lisa Yang Center for Autism Research, Y. Eva Tan Professorship in Neurotechnology, and the endowed K. Lisa Yang Post-Baccalaureate Program.

....To develop prosthetic limbs that move as the brain commands or optical devices that bypass an injured spinal cord to stimulate muscles, bionic developers must integrate knowledge from a diverse array of fields — from robotics and artificial intelligence to surgery, biomechanics, and design. The K. Lisa Yang Center for Bionics will be deeply interdisciplinary, uniting experts from three MIT schools: Science, Engineering, and Architecture and Planning. With clinical and surgical collaborators at Harvard Medical School, the center will ensure that research advances are tested rapidly and reach people in need, including those in traditionally underserved communities.

To support ongoing efforts to move toward a future without disability, the center will also provide four endowed fellowships for MIT graduate students working in bionics or other research areas focused on improving the lives of individuals who experience disability.

The center will be led by Hugh Herr,
https://www.media.mit.edu/people/hherr/overview/
a professor of media arts and sciences at MIT’s Media Lab, and
Ed Boyden,
https://mcgovern.mit.edu/profile/ed-boyden/
the Y. Eva Tan Professor of Neurotechnology at MIT, a professor of biological engineering, brain and cognitive sciences, and media arts and sciences, and an investigator at MIT’s McGovern Institute and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
A double amputee himself, Herr is a pioneer in the development of bionic limbs to improve mobility for those with physical disabilities.“The world profoundly needs relief from the disabilities imposed by today’s nonexistent or broken technologies. We must continually strive towards a technological future in which disability is no longer a common life experience,” says Herr. “I am thrilled that the Yang Center for Bionics will help to measurably improve the human experience for so many.”
Boyden, who is a renowned creator of tools to analyze and control the brain, will play a key role in merging bionics technologies with the nervous system. “The Yang Center for Bionics will be a research center unlike any other in the world,” he says. “A deep understanding of complex biological systems, coupled with rapid advances in human-machine bionic interfaces, mean we will soon have the capability to offer entirely new strategies for individuals who experience disability. It is an honor to be part of the center’s founding team.”

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Older Workers Are Just As Keen On Learning As Younger Workers

2021-08-13T12:25:03Z

Kes: What's really sad about these prejudices is that older people often believe them and, when I talk to people who are experiencing vision loss about the possibility of learning assistive technologies, they have a loss of self-confidence regarding their ability to learn new tech, and *that* is the biggest hurdle.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/adigaskell/2020/12/10/older-workers-are-just-as-keen-on-learning-as-younger-workers/?sh=37e699034658

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How Advertisers Serve Ads While You Sleep: Dream Implantation

2021-07-10T14:15:52Z

Kes: A couple of days ago, I made what I thought was a joke about this when I posted how Facebook and Oculis were going to be delivering advertising to users's XR headset, but it turns out that yes, advertisers are actually planning on delivering ads to people in their sleep.

https://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/a36719140/sleep-ads-dream-implantation/

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Neuroscientists unveil wearable tech for the visually impaired

2021-03-25T11:05:00Z

Kes: Really? It's us silly blind people who don't want to look silly? It wouldn't have anything to do with health insurance companies that won't even pay for an accessible phone or a smart plug let alone a multi-thousand dollar prosthetic device?
Because I have a degree from MIT and I wrote my thesis on images of disability and technology in science fiction: I think looking like a cyborg is aplus, and I *know* I'm not the only one.
https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-human-os/biomedical/devices/neuroscientists-unveil-tech-for-the-vision-impaired-bionic-eyes-textured-tablets-and-more
As a disability and technology advocate, I particularly object to the following uninformed statement:

“All of these wearables currently on the market have very low acceptance from the community because you look like some sort of RoboCop when you wear them, and people don’t want to attract attention to their impairment,” said Ruxandra Tivadar of the University of Bern in Switzerland, during the annual meeting of the Cognitive Neuroscience Society (CNS), held virtually this week.

It's really easy for people who are daily surrounded by the very newest tech to forget that many people in their own cities are living without access to the basic technologies of transportation, or an accessible phone, or high-speed Internet access.
Let me open your eyes to some of the basic technologies that many people with disabilities have been going without during this pandemic.
How We All Became Disabled, But We’re Still Not All Connected
https://kestrell.dreamwidth.org/379979.html

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Laughter is good for you body and mind

2020-12-05T15:48:05Z

There's such as thing as laughing yoga? I think I can totally handle that...
https://theconversation.com/laughing-is-good-for-your-mind-and-your-body-heres-what-the-research-shows-145984

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What tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon says about cognitive aging

2020-12-02T14:02:50Z

As with many issues in cognitive aging, we can view the increase in TOT states as a glass half empty or half full. On the one hand, these retrieval failures can be taken as evidence of weakening connections between the meanings of concepts and the words that denote them in long-term memory. It’s also possible that the increase in word-finding problems with age reflects something very different.

Psychologist Donna Dahlgren has argued that the key issue is not one of age but one of knowledge. If older adults typically have more information in long-term memory, then as a consequence they will experience more TOT states. It’s also possible that TOT states are useful: They can serve as a signal to the older adult that the sought-for word is known, even if not currently accessible. Such metacognitive information is beneficial because it signals that spending more time trying to resolve the word-finding failure may ultimately lead to success.
https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/tip-of-the-tongue-phenomenon/

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Book excerpt: When Objects Become Extensions of You

2020-12-02T12:21:28Z

Kes: Proprioception! This was one of my favorite words from writing my thesis in 2006, which included some of this research, especially as it related to prosthetics and assistive technology.

When Objects Become Extensions of You
By: Michael J. Spivey
https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/when-objects-become-extensions-of-you/

When a tool in your hand “becomes part of you,” it’s not just a metaphor. And it’s not just a statistical description of the motions of your body and the motions of the tool. It’s real. Your brain makes it real.
Remarkably, neurons that respond specifically to objects that are within reach of your hand will also respond to objects that are close to a tool that’s in your hand. Cognitive psychologists Jessica Witt and Dennis Proffitt found that when they asked people to use a reaching tool (a 15-inch orchestra conductor’s baton) to reach targets that were just out of range, the targets looked closer than when they intended to reach without the tool.

....Even if the brain just pretends that the tool is part of its body, then the tool is part of its body.

....Whether they are tools, toys, or mirror reflections, external objects temporarily become part of who we are all the time. When I put my eyeglasses on, I am a being with 20/20 vision, not because my body can do that — it can’t — but because my body-with-augmented-vision-hardware can. So that’s who I am when I wear my glasses: a hardware-enhanced human with 20/20 vision.

If you have thousands of hours of practice with a musical instrument, when you play music with that object, it feels like an extension of your body — because it is. When you hold your smartphone in your hand, it’s not just the morphological computation happening at the surface of your skin that becomes part of who you are. As long as you have Wi-Fi or a phone signal, the information available all over the internet (both true and false information, real news and fabricated lies) is literally at your fingertips. Even when you’re not directly accessing it, the immediate availability of that vast maelstrom of information makes it part of who you are, lies and all. Be careful with that.
This article is adapted from Michael Spivey’s book “Who You Are: The Science of Connectedness

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An embarrassing epiphany

2020-11-27T23:00:48Z

I spent 2020 updating my computer skills--I'm currently on my sixth and seventh online course, and I took about a dozen webinars--and I've been mostly receptive to new apps and new ways of doing things.

But I have this one, er, blind spot.

Whenever the first set of instructions is to go to the Windows search or Jaws search, I resist.

I cut my teeth on Windows '95 (which was really just DOS with a thin veneer of a GUI over it) and Unix, and there is still this idea in the back of my mind that old school users have a zillion keyboard commands memorized and don't need no stinkin' search.

Then a few seconds ago, it hit me.

I am *that guy*.

I am that guy who would rather waste an hour or two, wandering around lost, thinking, "No, wait, this is beginning to look familiar...," rather than pull over and ask for directions on how to get there.

F***,

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Cocoa can improve brain function

2020-11-25T20:26:10Z

So, prune juice may be the drink of warriors, but cocoa could be the drink of geeks
https://scitechdaily.com/can-drinking-cocoa-make-you-smarter-cocoa-flavanols-found-to-boost-brain-oxygenation-and-cognition/

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Why Science Labs Love Older Scientists

2020-10-31T13:53:29Z

from the same MIT newsletter as the previous post

3 who continue doing important work well past age 65

It’s been quite a year for Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. His leadership through the pandemic has made Fauci perhaps the nation’s most trusted voice on COVID-19. Time magazine included him on its list of 100 Most Influential People in 2020 and the National Academy of Sciences recently awarded Fauci its highest honor, the Gustav Lienhard Award.
Quite impressive for a man who’s just two months shy of his 80th birthday.
The physician and immunologist may seem like an anomaly, but in the world of science he isn’t. Many of the nation’s leading research laboratories and universities are teeming with scientists well past the age of 65 who continue to make enormous contributions to their fields of expertise.
https://www.nextavenue.org/why-science-labs-love-older-scientists/

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MIT study may explain why people may lose motivation to learn as they age

2020-10-31T13:39:12Z

Kes: I wonder if this has a similar link to how people with depression feel a similar lack of engagement?

As people age, they often lose their motivation to learn new things or engage in everyday activities. In a study of mice, MIT neuroscientists have now identified a brain circuit that is critical for maintaining this kind of motivation.
researchers showed that they could boost older mice’s motivation to engage in this type of learning by reactivating this circuit, and they could also decrease motivation by suppressing the circuit.
"This get-up-and-go, or engagement, is important for our social well-being and for learning — it’s tough to learn if you aren’t attending and engaged."
quote from Ann Graybiel, an Institute Professor at MIT and member of the McGovern Institute for Brain Research
https://news.mit.edu/2020/why-learn-motivate-age-decline-1027#:~:text=In%20a%20study%20of%20mice,maintaining%20this%20kind%20of%20motivation.&text=suppressing%20the%20circuit.-,%E2%80%9CAs%20we%20age%2C%20it's%20harder%20to%20have%20a%20get%2D,McGovern%20Institute%20for%20Brain%20Research.

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Bird brains aren't as disorganized as the human mammals thought

2020-10-25T18:35:34Z

No big surprise but another reminder that diversity doesn't equal inferiority: making assumptions based on surface appearance really just makes an ass of you.
https://scitechdaily.com/bird-brains-are-surprisingly-complex-extraordinary-cognitive-performance/

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MIT: How we tune out distractions

2019-06-15T13:27:04Z

Fascinating in itself but also with implications for people with noise sensitivity, such as those on the autism spectrum
http://news.mit.edu/2019/how-brain-ignores-distractions-0612

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Why do we like magic when we know it's a trick?

2019-04-12T13:54:47Z

Teller, of Penn and Teller, has been involved in studying the cognition of magic for decades, and my favorite academic on the subject is Barton Whaley, an MIT alum who became the father of "deception studies"
https://www.bbc.com/news/education-47827346

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Visual cortex in young blind children adapts to respond to spoken language

2019-04-10T19:43:49Z

At an adult level, and before they are old enough to learn to read braille. Could this imply that people who are born blind are intellectually inclined to be storytellers? Could all those blind bards and poets be a product as much of nature as of nurture?
https://hub.jhu.edu/2015/08/18/brain-vision-center-adaptability/

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Reading aloud assists in memory recall

2018-02-19T14:11:44Z

And listening to yourself reading out loud might improve recall even more
https://qz.com/1144521/you-remember-more-of-what-you-read-out-loud/

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Practice

2013-07-08T19:14:37Z

This video of tips from JustinGuitar.com on making the most from your practice
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POrIlbiDg0Y
is fascinating after just finishing _Guitar Zero_, as they are the same points made by the psychologist-author of _Guitar Zero_. Both emphasize the need to practice slowly and carefully so the student doesn't make learn bad habits, which are difficult to unlearn, and both mention that the foundation of playing well is through hours of practice, so that what starts out as a bunch of small steps requiring mental focus, such as chord changes, become an unthinking process where all those little parts merge into a whole.

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Book review: _Guitar Zero_ by Gary Marcus

2013-07-07T15:16:07Z

_Guitar zero : The new musician and the science of learning_ Gary F. Marcus (2012)

I loved this book, and I will be keeping it in the reread pile, because it is full of useful information for the would-be guitar player of any age. It is also suitable for the general reader, gently introducing some of the more technical terms used in both neuroscience and music theory, but never becoming bogged down with jargon. It's real strength, however, is that it provides a strong dose of encouragement for any adult who has thought of learning to play a musical instrument but felt overwhelmed by what seems to be the steep learning curve.
( continued below cut )

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Language and music

2013-06-29T13:16:33Z

block quote start
[W]ords at best offer only a distinctly limited window into the true nature of music....Even words that we take for granted aren't universal; pitches that we describe as "high" and "low" are described as "light" and "dark" in Norwegian.
from _Guitar Zero: The New Musician and the Science of Learning_
by Gary F. Marcus
block quote end

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Daniel Dennett and Steven Pinker at Brattle Theatre May 7

2013-04-17T17:55:01Z

From the Harvard Bookstore newletter

Daniel C. Dennett
discusses
Intuition Pumps And Other Tools for Thinking
in conversation with Steven Pinker
Tues, May 7, at 6 PM
$5 tickets are on sale now
http://www.harvard.com/event/daniel_c._dennett/

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Podcast on the brain and navigation

2013-04-06T20:08:50Z

Being a navigationally-challenged blind woman, I found this episode of RadioLand titled "Lost and Found" particularly fascinating. One of the things which I find curious about sighted people is how often they reduce navigation to a visual experience, when what is going on is really a multi-modal process, and this episode does a great job of explaining about that. Also, the segment with Charlie the Pigeon Man of Cornell is absolutely great, not only because how pigeons find their way home is really cool but because scientists are still compelled to admit f*** if they know how the birdbrains do it. Finally, the last segment is just a total tearjerker, because there can never be too many true stories about a blind woman and the guy with the not-so-secret-fuzzy-heart who loves her
http://www.radiolab.org/2011/jan/25/

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Dissonance

2013-03-22T15:49:52Z

It is almost impossible for me to read about the music of "The Wicker Man" while listening to New Orleans jazz. I had noticed the same dissonance while trying to read a British ghost story which was heavy on atmosphere.

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5 things I learned from _What the Nose Knows: The Science of Smell in Everyday Life_

2013-03-20T13:14:34Z

_What the Nose Knows: The Science of Smell in Everyday Life_ (2008) by Avery Gilbert

The author's description of himself demonstrates that he is definitely someone who gets to play in the overlap between science and media studies:
"...I'm a sensory psychologist, trained in evolutionary theory, animal behavior, and neuroscience. I'm a rational, evidence-based guy working in the most frothy, fashion-driven, marketing-heavy business outside of Hollywood....
The new science of smell is making us rethink everything from wine tasting to Smell-O-Vision. So it's time for a fresh look at odor perception and how it plays out in popular culture."

1. How many smells are there?
( lengthy post below the cut )

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