Synaesthesia as a Model System for Understanding Variation in the Human Mind and Brain

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jamie Ward
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Model System ◽  
Mind And Brain ◽  
Way Of Thinking ◽  
Key Questions

The aim of this article is to reposition synaesthesia as model system for understanding variation in the construction of the human mind and brain. People with synaesthesia inhabit a remarkable mental world in which numbers can be coloured, words can have tastes, and music is a visual spectacle. Synaesthesia has now been documented for over two hundred years but key questions remain unanswered about why it exists, and what such conditions might mean for theories of the human mind. This article argues we need to rethink synaesthesia as not just representing exceptional experiences, but as a product of an unusual neurodevelopmental cascade from genes to brain to cognition of which synaesthesia is only one outcome. Specifically, differences in the brains of synaesthetes support a distinctive way of thinking (enhanced memory, imagery etc.) and may also predispose towards particular clinical vulnerabilities. In effect, synaesthesia can act as a paradigmatic example of a neuropsychological approach to individual differences.

scholarly journals Talent in the taxi: a model system for exploring expertise

2009 ◽  
Vol 364 (1522) ◽  
pp. 1407-1416 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katherine Woollett ◽  
Hugo J. Spiers ◽  
Eleanor A. Maguire
Keyword(s):  
Model System ◽  
Neural Mechanisms ◽  
Functional Magnetic Resonance ◽  
Resonance Imaging ◽  
Taxi Drivers ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Use Of Expertise ◽  
Widespread Interest ◽  
Key Questions ◽  
Extensive Practice

While there is widespread interest in and admiration of individuals with exceptional talents, surprisingly little is known about the cognitive and neural mechanisms underpinning talent, and indeed how talent relates to expertise. Because many talents are first identified and nurtured in childhood, it can be difficult to determine whether talent is innate, can be acquired through extensive practice or can only be acquired in the presence of the developing brain. We sought to address some of these issues by studying healthy adults who acquired expertise in adulthood. We focused on the domain of memory and used licensed London taxi drivers as a model system. Taxi drivers have to learn the layout of 25 000 streets in London and the locations of thousands of places of interest, and pass stringent examinations in order to obtain an operating licence. Using neuropsychological assessment and structural and functional magnetic resonance imaging, we addressed a range of key questions: in the context of a fully developed brain and an average IQ, can people acquire expertise to an exceptional level; what are the neural signatures, both structural and functional, associated with the use of expertise; does expertise change the brain compared with unskilled control participants; does it confer any cognitive advantages, and similarly, does it come at a cost to other functions? By studying retired taxi drivers, we also consider what happens to their brains and behaviour when experts stop using their skill. Finally, we discuss how the expertise of taxi drivers might relate to the issue of talent and innate abilities. We suggest that exploring talent and expertise in this manner could have implications for education, rehabilitation of patients with cognitive impairments, understanding individual differences and possibly conditions such as autism where exceptional abilities can be a feature.

scholarly journals A Multiscale Review of Behavioral Variation in Collective Foraging Behavior in Honey Bees

Insects ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (11) ◽  
pp. 370 ◽  
Author(s):  
Natalie J. Lemanski ◽  
Chelsea N. Cook ◽  
Brian H. Smith ◽  
Noa Pinter-Wollman
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
Foraging Behavior ◽  
Collective Behavior ◽  
Individual Variation ◽  
Honey Bees ◽  
Multiple Scales ◽  
Model System ◽  
Bee Foraging ◽  
Collective Foraging ◽  
The Impact

The emergence of collective behavior from local interactions is a widespread phenomenon in social groups. Previous models of collective behavior have largely overlooked the impact of variation among individuals within the group on collective dynamics. Honey bees (Apis mellifera) provide an excellent model system for exploring the role of individual differences in collective behavior due to their high levels of individual variation and experimental tractability. In this review, we explore the causes and consequences of individual variation in behavior for honey bee foraging across multiple scales of organization. We summarize what is currently known about the genetic, developmental, and neurophysiological causes of individual differences in learning and memory among honey bees, as well as the consequences of this variation for collective foraging behavior and colony fitness. We conclude with suggesting promising future directions for exploration of the genetic and physiological underpinnings of individual differences in behavior in this model system.

Is the Human Brain Unique?

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jack M. Gorman
Keyword(s):  
Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Theory Of Mind ◽  
Human Brain ◽  
Brain Function ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Brain Diseases ◽  
Expression Of Genes ◽  
The Future ◽  
Mind And Brain ◽  
The Brain

Some scientists now argue that humans are really not superior to other species, including our nearest genetic neighbors, chimpanzees and bonobos. Indeed, those animals seem capable of many things previously thought to be uniquely human, including a sense of the future, empathy, depression, and theory of mind. However, it is clear that humans alone produce speech, dominate the globe, and have several brain diseases like schizophrenia. There are three possible sources within the brain for these differences in brain function: in the structure of the brain, in genes coding for proteins in the brain, and in the level of expression of genes in the brain. There is evidence that all three are the case, giving us a place to look for the intersection of the human mind and brain: the expression of genes within neurons of the prefrontal cortex.

Individual differences in second language acquisition

AILA Review ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 19 ◽  
pp. 42-68 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zoltán Dörnyei
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Learning Styles ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Learning Outcomes ◽  
Learning Strategies ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Prominent Feature ◽  
Learner Characteristics ◽  
The Individual

Ever since the early days of its existence, the field of psychology has been trying to achieve two different and somewhat contradictory objectives: to understand the general principles of the human mind and to explore the uniqueness of the individual mind. The latter direction has formed an independent subdiscipline within the field, usually referred to as individual difference (ID) research. IDs are a prominent feature of SLA because a great deal of the variation in language learning outcomes is attributable, either directly or indirectly, to various learner characteristics. This paper first provides an overview of the five most important ID variables (personality, aptitude, motivation, learning styles and learning strategies) and then concludes by describing certain common themes in contemporary ID research.

scholarly journals Kinetic Architecture; Renewable Energy

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 75
Author(s):  
Azza Gamal Haggag
Keyword(s):  
Renewable Energy ◽  
Energy Consumption ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Strong Relationship ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Construction Process ◽  
Kinetic Architecture ◽  
Way Of Thinking

Today, architecture is one of the finest products of the creative human mind that God has given us. Its existence is a necessity which makes the aspects of human life and way of thinking balanced between endless desires and needs. This confirms the strong relationship between the architectural product and humans. This relationship is based on providing humans with their needs and it aims to find appropriate solutions to the problems facing them. Additions that can be added to the architectural product such as motion help in activating the interaction in this relationship. The movement is added to the architectural output to express a new relationship between the environment and the human who was affected by the existence of motors and its utilitarian, technical, and aesthetic issues. The research focuses on how these effects can be exploited to solve problems like energy consumption that is a main problem in the construction process.

Betekent de monteerbare mens de antropologische heilstaat? Systematisch-theologische vragen

2009 ◽  
Vol 63 (2) ◽  
pp. 102-115
Author(s):  
Luco van den Brom
Keyword(s):  
Medical Technology ◽  
Religious Faith ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Brain Functions ◽  
Mind And Brain ◽  
The Individual ◽  
God Machine ◽  
The Brain

Developments in medical technology summon the image of a novel ‘bionic’ humanity of the cyborg. Is it possible to entirely reproduce human beings and retain their identity? This technological enhancement aims at improving the physical make-up of the human phenomenon as an individual. Mankind thus assumes control over their mental evolution, creating a techno-sapiens. This prompts the question whether religious faith, emotion, intention or responsibility are physiological reproducible. Experiments with a ‘God Machine’ seem to evoke religious impressions and to deny the individual meaning of God and the human mind. Hick’s dualism of mind and brain as dancing partners is unsuccessful by actually personalizing the brain. This article proposes to describe mental and brain functions as complementary instead of tracing their physiological origin. Then, religious faith is not reduced to fides quae, as merely physiological reproducible information, but remains an existential attitude to life, as fides qua, by itself within the context of a community of believers.

scholarly journals Tensors and compositionality in neural systems

2019 ◽  
Vol 375 (1791) ◽  
pp. 20190306 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea E. Martin ◽  
Leonidas A. A. Doumas
Keyword(s):  
Expressive Power ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Neural System ◽  
Process Models ◽  
Neural Systems ◽  
Human Thought ◽  
Multiplicative Operator ◽  
Compositional Structures ◽  
Mind And Brain ◽  
Behavioural Experiments

Neither neurobiological nor process models of meaning composition specify the operator through which constituent parts are bound together into compositional structures. In this paper, we argue that a neurophysiological computation system cannot achieve the compositionality exhibited in human thought and language if it were to rely on a multiplicative operator to perform binding, as the tensor product (TP)-based systems that have been widely adopted in cognitive science, neuroscience and artificial intelligence do. We show via simulation and two behavioural experiments that TPs violate variable-value independence, but human behaviour does not. Specifically, TPs fail to capture that in the statements fuzzy cactus and fuzzy penguin , both cactus and penguin are predicated by fuzzy (x) and belong to the set of fuzzy things, rendering these arguments similar to each other. Consistent with that thesis, people judged arguments that shared the same role to be similar, even when those arguments themselves (e.g., cacti and penguins) were judged to be dissimilar when in isolation. By contrast, the similarity of the TPs representing fuzzy (cactus) and fuzzy (penguin) was determined by the similarity of the arguments, which in this case approaches zero. Based on these results, we argue that neural systems that use TPs for binding cannot approximate how the human mind and brain represent compositional information during processing. We describe a contrasting binding mechanism that any physiological or artificial neural system could use to maintain independence between a role and its argument, a prerequisite for compositionality and, thus, for instantiating the expressive power of human thought and language in a neural system. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Towards mechanistic models of meaning composition’.

Mind and Brain: The Identity Hypothesis

1968 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 160-180
Author(s):  
R. J. Hirst
Keyword(s):  
Life Science ◽  
Good Deal ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Religious Experiences ◽  
Traditional Philosophy ◽  
Physiological Processes ◽  
Mind And Brain ◽  
Fair Hearing ◽  
The Brain

Life Science Library now claims to examine ‘the most complex of all biological organs: the human mind’, and scientists quite commonly make no distinction between mind and brain — they delight in talking about the brain classifying, decoding, perceiving, deciding or giving orders. And while resisting the conceptual muddle involved in talking of the brain doing what persons do, the identity hypothesis tries to provide a philosophically respectable basis for the equation of mind and brain, maintaining that ‘mind’ is just a term for a group of activities and dispositions, and that these in turn are in some sense to be identified with brain activities or traces. On the other hand, from the point of view of religion and traditional philosophy the suggestion is completely unplausible — creative or inventive thought, and aesthetic, moral or religious experiences seem so far removed from mechanical or physiological processes that a good deal of softening up is necessary if any kind of identity theory is to get a fair hearing. This softening up is best carried out by considering the difficulties in the main rival philosophical view, interactionism.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document