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InnerTalk® -InTouchTM
Newsletter
News Briefs /Further Explorations Into the
Mind
by Eldon Taylor
News Briefs
Give an experience
According to a new study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, you will enjoy and remember a gift or expenditure that provides an experience much more so than a gift of a pure material nature. Researchers Leaf Van Boven of the University of Colorado at Boulder and Thomas Gilovich of Cornell University found that unlike possessions, experiences get richer over time. Some items, like a book or scuba gear, possess both materialistic and experiential qualities. When you think of your gift list this year, think of what it may do as opposed to what it may be and perhaps the gift will be remembered and enjoyed far into the future. (This includes gifts you give yourself, of course.) (Krakovsky 2003)
Mental training counteracts mental decline
The old saying, "Use it or lose it" is as true of the mental as it is of physical. A new study carried out by Karlene Ball and associates, of the University of Alabama at Birmingham, shows that seniors can use brief training courses in any of three areas of thought and yield significant improvement in their cognitive skills as a result. The three areas identified by Ball and her associates are memory, reasoning or visual concentration. Further, the enhancement in cognitive skills derived as a result of this application of mental energy lasts for at least two years. The researchers recruited 2,832 healthy men and women between the ages of 65 and 94. The subjects were divided into three groups each assigned to one of the three training modalities. The training consisted of one-hour sessions over five to six weeks, ten sessions in all. The visual group learned to identify images presented quickly on a computer screen. The memory group worked with stories and word lists. The problem-solving group worked with routines like scheduling by working with things like a bus schedule. None of the tasks were difficult. The study tends therefore to suggest that using methods common to all of us, but by deliberately attempting to recall such things as the name of an author, will accomplish significant gains in cognitive abilities. (Bower 2003)
Positive thinking linked to immune response
Melissa Rosenkranz and colleagues at the University of Wisconsin published findings in the Proceedings of the national Academy of Sciences, according to Eric Strand writing for Psychology Today, that show weak immune responses in the "face of negative emotions." The impaired immune response was only present when experimental subjects were given the task of writing about emotionally negative or disturbing moments in their lives. (Strand 2003)
How about a "cognitive prosthesis?
If researchers like Kenneth M. Ford at the University of West Florida in Pensacola have their way, true mind-expanding machines may be just a few short years from reality. When Ford considers mental enhancement, he does not think first of artificial intelligence designs, but rather of a cognitive prosthesis as an enhance "computational tool that amplifies or extends a person's thought and perception, much as eyeglasses are prostheses that improve vision. Personally, I like this idea much more than those involving artificial intelligence--how about you? Ford directs the Institute of Human and Machine Cognition (IHMC). Take a look at their web site: http://www.ihmc.usor jump right into some of their projects at: http://www.coginst.uwf.edu/papers.html.
(Bower 2003)
Bibliography
Bower, B. (2003). MIND-EXPANDING MACHINES. Science News. 164: 136-138.
Bower, B. (2003). Thoughtful Lessons. Science News. 162: 307.
Krakovsky, M. (2003). Buying Happiness. Psychology Today. December: 18.
Strand, E. (2003). Think Positive. Psychology Today. December: 21.
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