People's Brains Research Articles

Pittsburgh, City of Bridges: Developing a Rational Approach to Interdisciplinary Discourse on Law

Once a flat sea floor, millions of years of erosion have carved the surface of Allegheny County into a maze of ridges and valleys. Pittsburgh sits where the Monongahela River. . ., and the Allegheny River . . ., join to form the Ohio .... With topography such as this, it is not surprising that there are so many bridges. One count reports over 2000 bridges of 8 feet span or greater.... Bridge engineers hold their conventions here. The Gateway Clipper Fleet offers guided riverboat tours featuring the bridges. It's virtually impossible to travel any notable distance without crossing a bridge. (Bruce Cridlebaugh, Bridges and Tunnels of Pittsburgh, PA, http:// pittsburgh.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm? site=http%3A%2F%2F www.pghbridges.com) Lauren Edelman's Presidential Address is daring, thought-provoking, and exciting. Edelman lays a sound foundation for understanding the economic analysis of law within the context of law and society (L&S) scholarship by outlining plausible arguments and examples for the embedded nature of rationality in law, culture, and politics and the endogeneity of law, society, and economic behavior. In so doing, Edelman not only offers insight for economists into the limitations of the neoclassical economic model, but also challenges law and society scholars of other disciplines to take account of what can be learned from the work of law and economics (L&E) scholars. Edelman's address represents multidisciplinary discourse at its best, challenging both sides to reflect on the basic assumptions of their disciplinary methods and divine what can be learned from the other's perspective. Let me offer a few reflections on Edelman's ideas, standing on my own side of the river amid the foundation for the bridge from economics to sociology that I have tried to build for a multidisciplinary discourse on law. Why Now, Why This Particular Bridge? In an unflattering comment on the rise of economic analysis in legal scholarship during the 1970s, Arthur Leff asked, [w]hy . . . now . . . why this particular tunnel? (1974:452). The same questions, of course, can be asked of Edelman's bridge-building project. I personally think that Edelman's timing for beginning construction of a bridge between L&S scholarship and L&E scholarship is impeccable. Interdisciplinary exchanges can be enormously valuable, but they need the right overlap of examined questions and methodology between the disciplines to occur and be profitable (DauSchmidt 1997). Although pure transplants of methodology from one discipline to another have occurred and been useful,1 it is much more likely that scholars will see the implications of work from other disciplines if they are examining the same or similar social problems as scholars in the other discipline. Accordingly, some overlap in examined questions and methodology is desirable in order to promote interdisciplinary discourse. However, if there is too much overlap in examined questions and methodology, then the multiple disciplinary perspectives become redundant and no new insights can be gained from the exchange. An academic monoculture would be a very poor environment in which to examine social problems and is probably not even possible given the different ways in which people's brains approach problems. The goal, after all, is to build bridges among different disciplinary perspectives, not to force everyone to live on the same side of the river. Although economics spent the better part of the twentieth century evolving in relative isolation from the other disciplines, in the 1960s a significant coalescence began among the disciplines with respect to examined questions and methodology, notably including the L&S movement and the L&E movement. Ironically, in economics, the first steps toward coalescence were undertaken by Ronald Coase, Gary Becker, and Richard Posner, scholars so wedded to the neoclassical economic model that they believed it should be applied to problems far afield of the traditional market analyses done by economists. …

Integrating Brain Science Research With Intelligence Research

Understanding the possible causes of differences in intelligence is crucial if children are to achieve their full potential. Such understanding has been hampered until recently, however, because researchers who study intelligence have neglected recent findings in the brain sciences suggesting that the brain develops in response to environmental stimulation. These findings have seemed to contradict intelligence research that suggests that intellectual abilities are inherited. However, the findings from intelligence research and the brain sciences can be integrated if it is accepted that there are individual differences in the process by which the brain adapts to the environment, such that some people's brains are better at adapting than others'. The findings obtained from intelligence research are consistent with this integrated model. Such an integration has implications for better understanding the nature of intelligence.

Reading McDermott

The author is interested in computational approaches to consciousness. His reason for working in the field of AI is to solve the mind-body problem, that is, to understand how the brain can have experiences. This is an intricate project because it involves elucidation of the relationship between our mentality and its physical foundation. How can a biological/chemical system (the human body) have experiences, beliefs, desires, intentions, and so on? Physicists have good reasons to persuade us that ours is a material world that obeys physical laws. Once we commit ourselves to this view, it sounds quite bewildering to think that there is a place for independently existing minds in such a world.When physicists speak, McDermott listens. His hypothesis is that we are all contraptions designed by evolution. The concept of mind arises because people's brains are biological computers. Crudely put, minds are produced by brains. The essential contribution of this rich book is an extended argument about how one can be more specific about the way this production is realized (see Appendix A).

Mind's eye in the deaf

Normally, visual information is sent from the eyes to the primary visual cortex for further processing. Likewise, auditory information, such as music and speech, is projected to the auditory cortex. However, because of their lack of visual input, blind people's visual cortices do not develop normally. Previous studies revealed that visual cortex in blind people's brains can be activated by auditory or tactile stimulation. A new study reports a parallel finding – the auditory cortex of early deaf people can be activated by visual stimuli.

Apprendre et enseigner avec tout son cerveau : une synthèse des méthodes et doctrines pédagogiques par la grille des préférences cérébrales d'Herrmann

Learning and teaching with the whole of one's brain. Despite the profusion of educational techniques and doctrines, a clear overall view has been made possible by the latest discoveries in neuropsychology on how the brain operates. The Hermann pattern of the "total brain" results from the crossing of the Sperry pattern (left brain : verbo-sequential ; right brain : visual-spatial) and the Mac Lean pattern (cortical : abstract evocations ; limbic : experienced emotions). The five great educational techniques/doctrines hinge successively on : knowing, performing, communicating, discovering and personal development. The ideologies of training come from a forgotten quadrant. The good trainer/teacher can move among the four quadrants and successively use all the quadrants of the trained people's brains. This implies a permanent diversification of the teaching style.

Sverre Fehns museumsteori

Sverre Fehn and his theory of exhibitions In the 17th century a large barn was erected on the ruins of a medieval bishop's residence at Hamar in Norway. Today it has been transformed into a historical museum, Storhamarlåven. The exhibition of historical objects has been designed by the famous architect Sverre Fehn. In this paper, which is a chapter in a more extensive study of Fehn, the author analyses the exhibition against the background of Fehn's own writings and statements made in press interviews. The author finds that Fehn in his adherence to modernism, is akin to Elias Cannetti who has characterized 'history' as an old vampire sucking the blood out of young people's brains and who argues that people who do not make their way out of history are irretrievably lost. How can Fehn combine the modernistic rejection of everything with a taste for history and nationalism with the museological responsibility to further identity and factual historical information? Both aims to be achieved through the medium of material objects.