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Topic: Did you know your brain could do that? - Two articles on human cognitive ability
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Anchoress
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 4650
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posted 07 January 2005 02:50 PM
They're both interesting but didn't seem a big enough deal to warrant two separate threads:Unusual medical case shows looking at eyes key to reading fear quote:
LONDON - A woman who is unable to recognize fear from facial expressions is helping scientists to understand how our brains perceive emotions. The 38-year-old known as SM has a rare disease that damaged both sides of her amygdala, the almond-shaped part of the brain that processes emotion.
... Whistlers highlight versatility of brain's language centres quote:
LONDON - Spanish shepherds who whistle to communicate over long distance use the same region of the brains as spoken language, a finding reflects the extraordinary flexibility of our brains, scientists say. The shepherds work on mountainous island of La Gomera in the Canary Islands, where they use combinations of whistles to convey phrases over rugged terrain.
From: Vancouver babblers' meetup July 9 @ Cafe Deux Soleil! | Registered: Nov 2003
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maestro
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 7842
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posted 08 January 2005 01:25 PM
quote:
LONDON - A woman who is unable to recognize fear from facial expressions...
I don't know why, but this makes me laugh. I get this picture in my mind of a face that shows fright  , but not fear. There's also the 'fright wig' used by comics for ages. Now I think of it, that's pretty strange. Why would feigned fear make us laugh? Moving on...the ability to recognize fear is obviously an evolutionary adaptation. Could come in real handy... [ 08 January 2005: Message edited by: maestro ]
From: Vancouver | Registered: Jan 2005
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maestro
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 7842
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posted 08 January 2005 01:36 PM
Oh, and the other topic, whistling shepherds acutally does deserve it's own thread. It speaks to the separation within our brain of the sensing and interpreting functions, a fascinating topic.In fact, someone has used that reality to build a theory of consciousness as a result of evolutionary adaptation. The book is "A History Of The Mind" by Nicholas Humphrey. (Nicholas Humphrey is a Senior Research Fellow at Darwin College, Cambridge. A research scientist, writer, and television documentary maker, he has studied mountain gorillas with Dian Fossey in Rwanda, has made important discoveries about the brain functions underlying vision, and is the only scientist ever to edit the literary journal Granta. The recipient of several honours, including the Martin Luther King Memorial Prize in 1985, he is also the author of "Consciousness Regained", "In A Dark Time", and "The Inner Eye".) There's a thread started by Skdadl on self- awareness that duplicates this topic somewhat, and that's where I'm going to examine it.
From: Vancouver | Registered: Jan 2005
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maestro
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 7842
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posted 10 January 2005 05:28 AM
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skdadl Hokay. And welcome to babble, maestro -- haven't said that yet.
I shoulda warned ya, I'm not a newbie. I'm really fuslim. I had a problem with my profile, and in the resulting explosion I lost everything. I had to register under a different name. However, once I did I found that I like Maestro much better than fuslim... 
From: Vancouver | Registered: Jan 2005
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