*makes an effort*
Left my list of books-read-but-not-blogged at work, so no updates on that front until Tuesday. (Which is the inauguration!!!) Actually I think I am going to follow Tari's example here, and just give myself a clean slate. On that note:
Linkblogging
Anti-Love Drug May be Ticket to Bliss: talking about oxytocin as the be-all and end-all of human pair bonding (on the female side). Also about taking drugs in order to fall in or out of love at your convenience. The wikipedia article has a long list of positive effects, and only one listed negative effect (adversely impacts memory and ability to learn). But I'm skeptical, not even in a philosophical we-are-more-than-our-brain-chemistry way, but in a biological brain-chemistry-is-complicated way. Like it seems to me, as a layperson, that bad things happen when pharmaceutical companies (let's just suppose) focus on a single chemical and don't think hard enough about the way it works within a system.
The End by Michael Lewis: Everyone's gonna think I got this from petronia, but she got it from me! ^^; First-hand accounts from skeptical cogs within the financial machine. Speaking of being freaked out, this stuff is *really* scary, because half of the bad loans and bad assets Lewis discusses haven't come out in the wash yet. Anyway this is a good article because it follows individuals and has a sort of narrative framework - my father and I thought this would make a good movie, with Eismen et al. as "antiheroes" since they were making a lot of money at the same time as they were disrupting sales meetings. "We fed the beast until it exploded" is a great line.
An oldie but a goodie: Gender Differences in Emoticon Use. Man I wish I could read this. Academic journal subscriptions are wasted on university undergrads, who don't have the time. ^^;
Was reading a book I found in my office, on language and communication styles. Nancy Bonvillain is our best-selling anthropology author and she's especially good with gender. Women in general speak with more pitch variation and expressiveness than men, she says, because they are expected to be emotional while men are expected to be able to control their emotions. That's the one everyone knows. Two other theories Bonvillain mentions, and that I hadn't heard before, are 1) women have developed this speaking style because it holds attention, and they are institutionally less powerful, and 2) women speak this way because they spend more time around children, who haven't yet been socialized to attend to verbal cues. This made me think of Pete Doherty, but then again what doesn't. XD
As long as I'm discussing books lying around the office that my obsessed brain was able to somehow relate back to the Libertines: here's another one. The "cutting edge" articles in this book were published in 2005 and aren't so cutting edge anymore, if they ever were -- I'm sure you'll all be shocked to hear that imaginative people are more likely to develop false memories than unimaginative people -- but there was an article on group brainstorming I liked. The basic point was that, contrary to popular belief, brainstorming in groups is almost always less effective than brainstorming alone, first because each person must wait his or her turn, second because people often hold back. Suggestions for constructing a group that will be more than the sum of its parts are:
<•>a mix of divergent (brings in unrelated or barely-related ideas) and convergent (thinks deeply along a single track) thinkers. This is the fox/hedgehog, eclecticist/purist thing in cognitive-scientist's clothing.
<•>an atmosphere where everyone contributes without feeling socially conscious -- maybe through writing?
<•>a mix of people with different areas of knowledge (duh).
<•>an atmosphere where people pay attention to each other. ^^; Sometimes I think cognitive science is all about stating the blindingly obvious, but then actually working through the implications.
And the best way is to first have a group session, then time alone to develop ideas, then another group session. Anyway what I was thinking was that, as a creative partnership, Pete and Carl had a lot of these. Although this only predicts ability to generate ideas, right - it doesn't say anything about ability to follow through.
The Glass Cliff. Meant to blog this weeks ago, forgot. The idea is that companies/governments are more likely to appoint/elect women/minorities to leadership positions in crisis situations. Good news for peeps in business or law school right now, I guess. XD; One thing that summary doesn't make clear is that this isn't necessarily a conscious decision - we can spare this person, let's set her up to fail! - often it's an unconscious decision - let's try a new direction, and tap into talent we've mysteriously not tapped into before now!
Currently reading
Possession by A.S. Byatt, for bibliophages. Finally gave up on my assigned book(s), so I am reading this instead. Have been avoiding comments for that reason, but you all should feel free.
Linkblogging
Anti-Love Drug May be Ticket to Bliss: talking about oxytocin as the be-all and end-all of human pair bonding (on the female side). Also about taking drugs in order to fall in or out of love at your convenience. The wikipedia article has a long list of positive effects, and only one listed negative effect (adversely impacts memory and ability to learn). But I'm skeptical, not even in a philosophical we-are-more-than-our-brain-chemistry way, but in a biological brain-chemistry-is-complicated way. Like it seems to me, as a layperson, that bad things happen when pharmaceutical companies (let's just suppose) focus on a single chemical and don't think hard enough about the way it works within a system.
The End by Michael Lewis: Everyone's gonna think I got this from petronia, but she got it from me! ^^; First-hand accounts from skeptical cogs within the financial machine. Speaking of being freaked out, this stuff is *really* scary, because half of the bad loans and bad assets Lewis discusses haven't come out in the wash yet. Anyway this is a good article because it follows individuals and has a sort of narrative framework - my father and I thought this would make a good movie, with Eismen et al. as "antiheroes" since they were making a lot of money at the same time as they were disrupting sales meetings. "We fed the beast until it exploded" is a great line.
An oldie but a goodie: Gender Differences in Emoticon Use. Man I wish I could read this. Academic journal subscriptions are wasted on university undergrads, who don't have the time. ^^;
Was reading a book I found in my office, on language and communication styles. Nancy Bonvillain is our best-selling anthropology author and she's especially good with gender. Women in general speak with more pitch variation and expressiveness than men, she says, because they are expected to be emotional while men are expected to be able to control their emotions. That's the one everyone knows. Two other theories Bonvillain mentions, and that I hadn't heard before, are 1) women have developed this speaking style because it holds attention, and they are institutionally less powerful, and 2) women speak this way because they spend more time around children, who haven't yet been socialized to attend to verbal cues. This made me think of Pete Doherty, but then again what doesn't. XD
As long as I'm discussing books lying around the office that my obsessed brain was able to somehow relate back to the Libertines: here's another one. The "cutting edge" articles in this book were published in 2005 and aren't so cutting edge anymore, if they ever were -- I'm sure you'll all be shocked to hear that imaginative people are more likely to develop false memories than unimaginative people -- but there was an article on group brainstorming I liked. The basic point was that, contrary to popular belief, brainstorming in groups is almost always less effective than brainstorming alone, first because each person must wait his or her turn, second because people often hold back. Suggestions for constructing a group that will be more than the sum of its parts are:
<•>a mix of divergent (brings in unrelated or barely-related ideas) and convergent (thinks deeply along a single track) thinkers. This is the fox/hedgehog, eclecticist/purist thing in cognitive-scientist's clothing.
<•>an atmosphere where everyone contributes without feeling socially conscious -- maybe through writing?
<•>a mix of people with different areas of knowledge (duh).
<•>an atmosphere where people pay attention to each other. ^^; Sometimes I think cognitive science is all about stating the blindingly obvious, but then actually working through the implications.
And the best way is to first have a group session, then time alone to develop ideas, then another group session. Anyway what I was thinking was that, as a creative partnership, Pete and Carl had a lot of these. Although this only predicts ability to generate ideas, right - it doesn't say anything about ability to follow through.
The Glass Cliff. Meant to blog this weeks ago, forgot. The idea is that companies/governments are more likely to appoint/elect women/minorities to leadership positions in crisis situations. Good news for peeps in business or law school right now, I guess. XD; One thing that summary doesn't make clear is that this isn't necessarily a conscious decision - we can spare this person, let's set her up to fail! - often it's an unconscious decision - let's try a new direction, and tap into talent we've mysteriously not tapped into before now!
Currently reading
Possession by A.S. Byatt, for bibliophages. Finally gave up on my assigned book(s), so I am reading this instead. Have been avoiding comments for that reason, but you all should feel free.