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Interview with Dave on guitar website

dmunger — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 11:57:22 +0000

Interview with Dave on guitar website

Jemsite, a website, forum and blog about guitars, has posted a fairly extensive interview with me about the psychology of music, Cognitive Daily, and other projects I'm working on. Plus, you can find out the name of Jim's Southern rock band, so head on over and check it out!

dmunger Fri, 06/26/2009 - 07:57

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Encephalon, miscellaneous site news

dmunger — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 11:53:16 +0000

Encephalon, miscellaneous site news

We'll be hosting Encephalon here at CogDaily on Monday -- it's a bimonthly festival of the best cognitive / neuroscience blog posts on the web. If you've got a post you'd like to see included, send an email to encephalon -- . -- host -- @ -- gmail -- . -- com (remove dashes).

In other site news, this week we're moving to our summer schedule, which means, due to our travel schedule, Casual Fridays are on hiatus until the fall. Also, you might see a few more repeat posts than usual. We'll try to stay on top of things, but in general, you should expect to see posts a little less frequently. Don't worry, things will ramp back up in the fall. Enjoy your summer (or winter, depending on where you live)!

dmunger Fri, 06/05/2009 - 07:53

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Introducing a new in-depth feature: Cognitive Monthly

dmunger — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 14:02:35 +0000

Introducing a new in-depth feature: Cognitive Monthly

Today we're introducing a new feature on Cognitive Daily. Every month, in addition to our regular blog posts, we're going to create a downloadable mini-book (or maxi-article, take your pick) about an issue related to cognitive psychology. Surprise, surprise, it's called Cognitive Monthly.

Although based on posts that have appeared in CogDaily, it goes beyond what's in the blog, synthesizing and incorporating interviews and other insights. The first issue (May 2009) comes out today!

This month's report, "The Illusion of Theater," covers the remarkable science behind what theatrical professionals seem, to laypeople, to do intuitively: create an environment that encourages us to believe that what we see on stage is a true representation of reality. We interviewed a director with the Royal Shakespeare Company, along with several other key participants in the production of a play, and applied their explanation of the process of theater production to the science of perception. We think you'll find our report surprising and engaging.

You may have noticed a new tab on our site to access the feature, which offers links to all the downloads.

The price is $2 per download, available now from Lulu.com in PDF format (compatible with nearly all computers, plus the Sony e-reader and iPhone), and from Amazon.com in Kindle format. The Kindle version also works on an iPhone, but it's black-and-white, so you may prefer the full-color Lulu version.

If you're not sure whether you'd like to buy this issue of Cognitive Monthly, just wait a few days. We've sent copies to most of the major psychology bloggers on the net, and several have assured us that they'll have reviews up shortly. We'll add links to the reviews here as soon as we see them.

We hope you enjoy Cognitive Monthly. While the topics for the first few months are set, we'd love to hear your ideas about topics to cover in the future, so let us know either here in the comments or via email.

Update: As promised, reviews are starting to come in:

Tom Vanderbilt: Theater of Illusion
Bora Zivkovic: Cognitive Monthly
SciCurious: Cognitive Daily goes to the Theater
Vaughan Bell (Mind Hacks): "I can heartily recommend it as excellent."

I'll update the list of reviews here as they come in. I hope they'll make your purchasing decision a little easier.

dmunger Thu, 04/30/2009 - 10:02

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Passion, Culture and Education (& John Seely Brown and Phil Zimbardo) and Cognitive Psych

John Seely Brown and Richard Adler write about âpassion-basedâ learning. These authors argue that understanding is socially constructed and that meaning is created âby what one person produces and others build on â a remixâ e.g. (2008) Minds on Fire.

I know that passion is related to Zimbardoâs concept of heroes. And to peace & conflict resolution - creativity over destructiveness - culture, civic responsibility & resisting unwanted influences.

In my perfect world, Iâd like John Seely Brown take his (passionate learning through technology/innovation) focus and work with Phil Zimbardoâs expert ideas about how we acquire and manifest our values and then put this into a perspective of Cogntive Psych.

Can it be done?

Elizabeth -- that's an intriguing idea. We've written about studies showing that self-discipline is more important than "intelligence" in predicting academic success. It's entirely possible that passion is part of what drives self-discipline.

Are you homosexual?

dmunger — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 14:31:39 +0000

Are you homosexual?

I'm having a dispute with a reader in an online forum. Let's settle it here with a quick, private poll:

Trust me, this is related to psychology.

dmunger Tue, 02/10/2009 - 09:31

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I can't answer this poll. You need a "bisexual" option. The "mostly" options aren't accurate for me.

Okay, fixed. Sorry about that! Should take a few minutes to update with new options.

ok you'd better follow this up with an explanation.

you can find all the stats you need on the topic at: here

I chose "other". I classify myself as "pansexual". My personal interpretation of that means that I am attracted to an individual regardless of gender or gender identity. For information sake- I'm 37, and identify as and was born female.

I answered "other" because I am asexual. I am romantically attracted to both men and women, but I am sexually attracted to neither.

This survey is self selecting.

Non heterosexual people are more sensative about orientation issues and are more likely to answer a poll like this. You need to due blind testing.

Btw I vote a non hetero option.

The survey is also self-selecting for those that like one of these flavors of labels.
My personal favorite labels are "queermosexual" "ambisextrous" or just "nonheteronormative"

I'm guessing Dave said something like, "well, most of my readers..." to actually provide evidence of something, and then another commenter who didn't like that outcome replied, "well, most of your readers are gay".

ahh, the enlightenment of anonymous discourse.
http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1771556 (link definitely pg13+)

Mike: You're exactly right -- that was the whole point of this exercise. See this post summing up the results.

This poll is completely biased...

(1) The "bisexual" option is ridiculous. It completely negates and defeats the "mostly" options.

(2) The "other" option is...? Huh? Other?? What else is there, "bestiality only"...?

(3) Your sampling is EXTREMELY limited -- limited only to your blog readers.

(4) It's not stated that it's anonymous anywhere which COMPLETELY biases it AGAINST anyone NOT wanting to publicly admit that they are GAY.

And most importantly of all...

(5) The TITLE of the poll matters.

You used a derogatory term in the title of the poll. Come on... At least TRY to hide your bias....

"HOMOSEXUAL"....? Who uses that term?

Pleeezzzz.

There's one category missing, the people everyone ignores and doesn't want to think about. Who are they? Asexuals. People uninterested in sex. They're around, but nobody (but me?) seems the least bit curious about them.

Bruce:

The whole point is for the sample to be my blog readers. We're comparing the results of last week's survey with this poll, to see if the phrasing of the post title makes a difference.

"Homosexual" is a derogatory term? Where did you hear that? If you look up "homosexual" and "gay" on http://urbandictionary.com you'll see that "gay" can have negative connotations and "homosexual" does not.

I'll respond to your other objections on the other post.

The TITLE of the poll matters. You used a derogatory term in the title of the poll. Come on... At least TRY to hide your bias.... "HOMOSEXUAL"....? Who uses that term? Pleeezzzz.

You're joking, right? If that's the case, then calling people "heterosexual" would also be considered derogatory. I had no idea general prefixes of Greek origin were considered offensive.

I'm guessing that this is a poll to identify the proportion of people who fly off the handle at the mere suggestion of trying to measure anything to do with sexuality, or to assess the proportion of people who pepper their replies with LOTS OF WORDS IN CAPITAL LETTERS. I mean, come on ... PUH-LEEEAZE!!??

Anyway, I hope no-one is going to LABEL me as sarcastic on the basis of this response. There's no way that my preferred style of humour could be CATEGORIZED like this. I prefer to think of myself as pan-humourous.

This poll question made me immediately think of my favourite Onion article.

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/33540

:-)

The categories offered are all false choices based upon the false assumption that people are defined by what they feel like doing with their body parts. It's the Kinsey myth. I'm a guy. End of story. Anything else is just identity politics and junk science.

So someone who's 70% straight isn't bisexual then? I never knew that before....

Casual Friday postponed 'til Saturday

dmunger — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 16:24:15 +0000

Casual Friday postponed 'til Saturday

Sorry, this week's Casual Friday results won't be ready until tomorrow. There's lots of interesting data, and I want to make sure I do it justice.

dmunger Fri, 02/06/2009 - 11:24

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That's OK. It's casual.

CogDaily's best posts of the year?

dmunger — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 09:27:01 +0000

CogDaily's best posts of the year?

Here are the four posts that I selected to nominate for Open Laboratory 2008, the collection of the best science blog posts of the year:

Disagree with my choices? You can nominate one yourself, here. But remember that the post has to work in book form (with some adaptation). I had to pass over some great posts because they included videos or other interactive elements.

dmunger Thu, 11/20/2008 - 04:27

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Plunging in to social networking

dmunger — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 19:27:43 +0000

Plunging in to social networking

I've set up accounts on FriendFeed and Twitter with the username davemunger. I'm going to give these sites a try for the next week or so. Unlike with Facebook where we've got a profile but haven't really done much, I'd actually like to actively participate in these networks.

I'd appreciate any tips readers have for getting established there, and any other similar sites that it might be useful to be a part of. Ideally these sites would link back in to FriendFeed so I only have to check up on one site. And of course, if you'd like to follow my feed, you're welcome to.

dmunger Mon, 11/17/2008 - 14:27

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Very glad to see Cognitive Daily on Twitter -- Darren Rowse's TwitTips blog (http://www.twitip.com/) and especially his recent beginners post (http://www.twitip.com/10-easy-steps-for-twitter-beginners/) are a great way to start.

Welcome to the conversation, and thanks for the follow back.
Keep up the good work and you will do just fine.

Darin

Follow follow follow.

You don't really get your fingers on the pulse of current trends unless you are following at least 100 people.

Be discriminatory when following somebody through SMS updates. Save that for people you particularly want to hear from no matter when.

FriendFeed is different. Don't follow follow follow there. Pick a few people from twitter that you feel share particularly interesting information that relates to your field of study and check to see if they have a friend feed.

FriendFeed is to be used more as an aggregated RSS feed. At least, that is how I use it. I funnel all of my news travels into my FriendFeed.

It should take you about a week to get comfortable with twitter. Remember that you can always 'unfollow' people once you figure out what you want to use it for.

Let me know if you'd like any more tips.

I think social networking is highly personality-dependent. I got involved in a couple of limited social networking sites*, and I found them very intrusive, like having a roommate who didn't respect my personal space, and kept walking into the bathroom when I was taking a shit.

My point is, there are upsides and downsides to successful social networking, and you may prefer a situation where your Internet time is more under your control.

* I had a music page on MySpace, which was awful, but free and easy to set up, and I studied Portuguese on LiveMocha, which is a great resource, unless you get really uptight when Brazilian strangers critique every freakin' word you say.

Thanks for the tips everyone -- I'm starting to see why people are so into Twitter. There's no way I'm going to do the SMS version though. There's such a thing as too much information!

I think that, to some degree, what you get out of these sites depends on what you put in. FriendFeed can be useful as a sort of meta-RSS aggregator, allowing you to see what things other people find interesting, but you get more out of it if you push stuff out there-- blog posts, del.icio.us links, etc. That gives other people a way to find you, which in turn gives you a way to find people you don't already know.

You should definitely concentrate on twitter first, and get used to using that and then expand out from there. You should setup the twitter app in facebook so your tweets get relayed to all your facebook contacts, it is useful to hear back from those in FB that will never join twitter. Twitter is a more pure conversation / crowdsourcing tool than anything else out there, IMHO.

Thanks for the tips. Very helpful!

Never forget that twitter is a conversation, often abstract and often multi-threaded with many communicators. Do your part and add to the conversation.

Don't feel obligated to answer every single person who includes you n a conversation back but always jump in where it is appropriate, even if it is hours later.

Follow people who have at least a couple of thousand followers first and you'll naturally build your following as people on their streams see your posts.

Be interesting, share opinions, take a stand, and start the conversation.

Feel free to follow me and I'll follow you back. I'm @davelakhani or http://www.twitter.com/davelakhni

Hi Dave!

Dave Lakhani used less than 140 precise characters to pique my interest enough to follow you, and to visit your site. Please give Twitter longer than a few days or weeks.

Initially I was apprehensive when I joined Twitter, so I spent the majority of my time reading and learning. I find now that I have a sense of the 'collective personality' of those I follow and I am comfortable enough to contribute and ask questions, and when I can, offer advice.

When observed in the context of a conversation you will be amazed how you get a sense of the pulse of how a strata of an international society is thinking, and you will learn immediately applicable opinions.

Feel free to follow me @known - I tend to follow internet marketers because I realized I have much to learn!

Best regards,

Cheryl C. Cigan
www.known.com

I tried twitter about a year ago, and quickly dismissed it as a waste of time.
I was wrong.
I've been using it again for a few days, and have realised that it is a very powerful tool for many purposes.
I guess my main comment at present is that your twitter experience will depend on who you choose to follow. I've gained lots of insights from some people - and unfollowed others who use twitter constantly just to send out spam.
I'm thinking that it would be an advantage to have one account for business, and another for more personal oriented stuff.
And try Twhirl (http://www.twhirl.com) for a great twitter interface.

I'm use twitter too, and my username is deagle :D

Dave and Greta speaking at CLT WordCamp tomorrow

dmunger — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 10:05:07 +0000

Dave and Greta speaking at CLT WordCamp tomorrow

Greta and I will be participating in a panel on blogging tomorrow in Charlotte, NC. If you're in town, you might want to stop by. More information here.

dmunger Fri, 11/14/2008 - 05:05

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Links for Shireen Campbell's class

dmunger — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 07:30:36 +0000

Links for Shireen Campbell's class

Today I'm visiting Shireen Campbell's class at Davidson College to talk about Cognitive Daily and other writing projects. This post collects the links I'll be using for class. If you're not in the class they might not be relevant to you, but they include some of our most popular posts, so maybe you'll enjoy reading them too!

For more, new links about psychology and neuroscience, visit this week's Encephalon at HighlightHEALTH.

dmunger Mon, 11/10/2008 - 02:30

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These links helped me. Thank's

Vote for Encephalon!

dmunger — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 09:16:44 +0000

Vote for Encephalon!

Encephalon is up at Mind Hacks! Go check it out!

Greta and I are off to vote today, so you'll have to get your psychology fix over there.

Oh, and out of curiousity:

dmunger Tue, 10/28/2008 - 05:16

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I have an Election Party to go to on the 4th, so it seems like it'd be more fun to vote before, then go straight to the party. Plus it's at the VA hospital across the street from my apartment, so it's more convenient than finding the early voting places, anyway.

Yes! And it took me forever! The early voting lines are out the door here in Florida. I'm not sure why I bothered, though - you just know we're going to totally wreck the election again down here.

I'm back from early voting -- took about an hour and fifteen minutes. This compares to about 1:20 last election voting on Election Day. So, not much difference, but at least I avoid the worry of not being able to vote at all.

Jenny: According to yesterday's New York Times, actually we have a pretty good chance of ruining it here in North Carolina. I should say the election officials were being pretty careful to remind us of the potential problem.

Nope, nor do I plan to, however being 16 I have an excuse.

Hi Dave- Love your blog. How about a survey addressing the issue of productivity in the workplace these days?! I know I've been terrible at work these past few weeks between the campaign, the economy, everything. I do one minor task and then I'm back online seeing if there's any news. Of course everyone is talking about the news at work, too. I bet if one could measure these things, September & October would be poor employee performance months! Okay, back to work (right).