discovery

What believing in God does to your brain

Humans suppress areas of the brain used for analytical thinking and engage the parts responsible for empathy in order to believe in god, research suggests.

They do the opposite when thinking about the physical world, according to the study.

“When there’s a question of faith, from the analytic point of view, it may seem absurd,” said Professor Tony Jack, who led the research.

“But, from what we understand about the brain, the leap of faith to belief in the supernatural amounts to pushing aside the critical/analytical way of thinking to help us achieve greater social and emotional insight.

The countries in the world with the most “convinced atheists.” Countries in grey were not surveyed.

In an analysis of eight experiments, published in the journal PLOS ONE, researchers also found people with faith were more empathetic than those without.
The researchers examined the relationship between the belief in god and measures of analytic thinking and moral concern in eight experiments, each using between 159 and 527 adult participants.
Although both spiritual belief and empathic concern were positively associated with frequency of prayer or meditation, neither were predicted by social contact – such as church dinners – associated with religious affilation.
In earlier research, Professor Jack’s Brain, Mind & Consciousness laboratory used an fMRI machine to show the brain has an analytical network of neurons that enables humans think critically and a social network to empathise.

“Because of the tension between networks, pushing aside a naturalistic world view enables you to delve deeper into the social/emotional side,”

Professor Jack explained.

“And that may be the key to why beliefs in the supernatural exist throughout the history of cultures. It appeals to an essentially nonmaterial way of understanding the world and our place in it.”

The researchers said the human brain explores the world using both networks. When presented with a physics problem or ethical dilemma, a healthy brain activates the appropriate network while suppressing the other.

Such suppression may lead to the conflict between science and religion, the researchers added.
“Because the networks suppress each other, they may create two extremes,” said Richard Boyatzis, professor of organisational behavior at Case Western Reserve University.

“Recognising that this is how the brain operates, maybe we can create more reason and balance in the national conversations involving science and religion.”

Source: Independent

https://scitechafrica.wordpress.com/2016/03/25/what-believing-in-god-does-to-your-brain/

Why you can not Get a Good Sleep in Someone Else’s Bed

Half of your brain may be staying awake to keep watch when you sleep in someone else’s bed…

Whether you’re staying in a hotel or having a sleepover, you never sleep quite as well on a bed that’s not your own.
That’s an observable fact. When scientists have people sleep in a lab for an experiment, they often toss out the first night of data because people sleep so poorly. But before now, they haven’t known why.
In a small new study published in Current Biology, researchers from Brown University found out what goes on in the brain when a person sleeps in an unfamiliar place. They measured brain activity during the deep sleep of 35 young, healthy people.

The researchers found evidence that something unique indeed goes on in the brain during the first night: one hemisphere of the brain, the left, shows wakefulness while the other shows sleep.

This alertness during sleep in half of the brain has been observed in other animals—including whales, dolphins and birds—and is thought to act as a kind of night watch.

“The environment is so new to us, we might need a surveillance system so we can monitor the surroundings and we can detect anything unusual,”

says Masako Tamaki, one of the authors of the study and research associate at the Laboratory for Cognitive and Perceptual Learning at Brown University.

We’re most vulnerable when we’re asleep, in other words, and by staying partially awake, our brains might be trying to protect us.

Our brain remain active when we sleep. researchers also found that when they outfitted the people in the study with earphones, the left side showed a larger brain response to high-pitched sounds than the right—suggesting more vigilance in that hemisphere.

The study raises a lot of unanswered questions; researchers don’t yet know why they saw this effect in the left hemisphere and not the right. But interestingly, both of these asymmetries only occurred on the first night—something to keep in mind the next time you can’t fall asleep in a strange place.

Source: Time

https://scitechafrica.wordpress.com/2016/04/24/reason-you-cannot-get-a-good-sleep-in-someone-elses-bed/

Exploring the Myth of the Scientific vs. ArtisticMind

From Lifehacker Read the full article here-> http://ift.tt/1NE5ZB3

Exploring the myth of the Scientific vs. Artistic Mind
It’s a stereotype, but many of us have made the assumption that scientists are a bit rigid and less artistic than others. Artists, on the other hand, are often seen as being less rational than the rest of us. Sometimes described as the left side of the brain versus the right side–or simply logical thinking versus artistic creativity–the two are often seen as polar opposites.

Neuroscience has already shown that everyone uses both sides of the brain when performing any task. And while certain patterns of brain activity have sometimes been linked to artistic or logical thinking, it doesn’t really explain who is good at what–and why. That’s because the exact interplay of nature and nurture is notoriously difficult to tease out. But if we put the brain aside for a while and just focus on documented ability, is there any evidence to support the logic versus art stereotype?
Psychological research has approached this question by distinguishing between two styles of thinking: convergent and divergent. The emphasis in convergent thinking is on analytical and deductive reasoning, such as that measured in IQ tests. Divergent thinking, however, is more spontaneous and free-flowing. It focuses on novelty and is measured by tasks requiring us to generate multiple solutions for a problem. An example may be thinking of new, innovative uses for familiar objects.

Studies conducted during the 1960s suggested that convergent thinkers were more likely to be good at science subjects at school. Divergent thinking was shown to be more common in the arts and humanities.
However, we are increasingly learning that convergent and divergent thinking styles need not be mutually exclusive. In 2011, researchers assessed 116 final-year UK arts and science undergraduates on measures of convergent and divergent thinking and creative problem solving. The study found no difference in ability between the arts and science groups on any of these measures. Another study reported no significant difference in measures of divergent thinking between arts, natural science and social science undergraduates. Both arts and natural sciences students, however, rated themselves as being more creative than social sciences students did.

Going With the Flow

Studies have actually revealed considerable overlap in the cognitive processes supporting both scientific and artistic creativity. The psychological concept of “flow”, pioneered by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi in the 1990s, describes a state of consciousness where one is completely absorbed and energized while performing an activity. Flow experience has been strongly linked to peak performance in many artistic and creative domains.

There is also substantial overlap in the use of visualization and mental imagery during scientific and artistic thinking. Great scientists such as Albert Einstein, Michael Faraday and Nikola Tesla all reported that they used mental imagery when describing their thought processes. Studies have also found that mental imagery plays a central role during the construction and evaluation of many scientific “thought experiments”, in which a scientist mentally assesses the implications of a particular hypothesis.

Perhaps more obviously, such mental imagery also features strongly in musical composition, painting and architectural design.
The Power of Stereotyping

Convergent and divergent thinking abilities aren’t necessarily innate. A recent study on creative stereotypes asked individuals to complete a divergent thinking task while adopting the perspective of either an “eccentric poet” or a “rigid librarian”.

Those who imagined being an “eccentric poet” performed significantly better on the creative task than those who imagined being a “rigid librarian”, suggesting that the activation of stereotypical views on creative thinking can enhance or inhibit individuals’ performance.

Despite such preconceptions of the ways in which logical and unstructured thinking styles are related to creativity, it is not difficult to find examples of individuals who do not fit the stereotype. Albert Einstein was a keen musician who enjoyed playing the piano and violin while Nobel Prize-winner Richard Feynman worked as an artist using the pseudonym “Ofey”. Musicians Brian May, Brian Cox and Greg Graffin all completed science PhDs.

Case studies of scientists engaging in art and vice versa are often presented as being unusual. However, psychologists recently conducted a comprehensive review of the extent to which Nobel Prize winners in the sciences, members of the Royal Society and US National Academy of Sciences, and members of the US public reported engaging in arts and crafts-based pursuits. They found that members of the Royal Society and National Academy of Sciences were almost twice as likely to report engaging in arts and crafts pursuits as the general public. Eminent Nobel laureate scientists were almost three times more likely to report such activities.

These findings clearly show that the stereotypical view that scientists and other logical thinkers are less likely to be artistic or creative fall wide of the mark. As Einstein himself noted: “The greatest scientists are artists as well.”

Exploding the Myth of Scientific vs. Artistic Minds | The Conversation
David Pearson is Reader of Cognitive Psychology, Anglia Ruskin University, having previously worked at the University of Aberdeen and the University of the Saarland in Germany. He is a Chartered Psychologist and Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society, and a member of the Experimental Psychology Society. Image by Doggygraph (Shutterstock).
https://michellehunterart.wordpress.com/2016/04/22/brain-article-of-interest-exploring-the-myth-of-the-scientific-vs-artisticmind/