Hacker News with Generative AI: Cognition

Crows can recognize geometric regularity (phys.org)
A trio of animal physiologists at the University of Tübingen, in Germany, has found that at least one species of crow has the ability to recognize geometric regularity.

Animals, Science, Cognition, Crows, Geometry

178 points by wglb 9 days ago | 81 comments

Vitamin K Deficiency Affects Cognition, Neurogenesis, and Inflammation in Mice (sciencedirect.com)

Vitamin K, Cognition, Neuroscience, Biology, Mice

5 points by gnabgib 12 days ago | 1 comments

Intelligence Evolved at Least Twice in Vertebrate Animals (quantamagazine.org)
Humans tend to put our own intelligence on a pedestal. Our brains can do math, employ logic, explore abstractions and think critically. But we can’t claim a monopoly on thought. Among a variety of nonhuman species known to display intelligent behavior, birds have been shown time and again to have advanced cognitive abilities.

Intelligence, Evolution, Animals, Cognition, Birds

247 points by rbanffy 18 days ago | 184 comments

Write to Escape Your Default Setting (kupajo.com)
For those of us with woefully average gray matter, our minds have limited reach. For the past, they are enthusiastic but incompetent archivists. In the present, they reach for the most provocative fragments of ideas, often preferring distraction over clarity.

Writing, Creativity, Thought Processes, Cognition

407 points by kolyder 57 days ago | 93 comments

Learning fast and accurate absolute pitch judgment in adulthood (springer.com)
Absolute pitch (AP) refers to the ability to identify the pitch name of a tone that is presented in isolation.

Music, Science, Learning, Cognition

174 points by dr_dshiv 72 days ago | 131 comments

Microsoft Study Finds AI Makes Human Cognition "Atrophied and Unprepared" (404media.co)
A new paper from researchers at Microsoft and Carnegie Mellon University finds that as humans increasingly rely on generative AI in their work, they use less critical thinking, which can “result in the deterioration of cognitive faculties that ought to be preserved.”

Artificial Intelligence, Research, Cognition, Human Impact

15 points by skobux 75 days ago | 2 comments

Fake thinking and real thinking (joecarlsmith.com)
“There comes a moment when the children who have been playing at burglars hush suddenly: was that a real footstep in the hall?”

Thinking, Philosophy, Cognition, Psychology

88 points by surprisetalk 86 days ago | 18 comments

Signature moves: are we losing the ability to write by hand? (theguardian.com)
We are far more likely to use our hands to type or swipe than pick up a pen. But in the process we are in danger of losing cognitive skills, sensory experience – and a connection to history

Writing, Handwriting, Technology, Cognition, History

5 points by gmays 91 days ago | 0 comments

Most self-reported aphantasics also reported weak or absent auditory imagery (nlm.nih.gov)
Auditory and visual imagery were studied in a sample of 128 participants, including 34 self-reported aphantasics.

Psychology, Neuroscience, Cognition, Imagery

5 points by kordlessagain 118 days ago | 6 comments

Camembert cheese compounds improve memory and learning (psypost.org)
A recent study published in Neuroscience Research sheds light on the potential cognitive benefits of Camembert cheese.

Health, Food, Neuroscience, Memory, Cognition

22 points by geox 119 days ago | 4 comments

Our brains create mental "chapters" with new event segmentation study (psypost.org)
A new study published in Current Biology sheds light on how the brain divides the continuous flow of information in our daily lives into discrete, meaningful events.

Neuroscience, Psychology, Cognition, Research

197 points by domofutu 132 days ago | 37 comments

Study shows bats have acoustic cognitive maps (phys.org)
Echolocating bats have been found to possess an acoustic cognitive map of their home range, enabling them to navigate over kilometer-scale distances using echolocation alone.

Science, Animals, Biology, Navigation, Cognition

75 points by wglb 171 days ago | 22 comments

Writing is not the same as thinking (greyenlightenment.com)
The reason so many people have trouble writing is that it’s fundamentally difficult. To write well you have to think clearly, and thinking clearly is hard.

Writing, Thinking, Cognition

5 points by paulpauper 173 days ago | 0 comments

Depressive Realism (wikipedia.org)
Depressive realism is the hypothesis developed by Lauren Alloy and Lyn Yvonne Abramson[1] that depressed individuals make more realistic inferences than non-depressed individuals.

Psychology, Mental Health, Research, Cognition

6 points by yamrzou 175 days ago | 0 comments

Minor degree of hypohydration adversely influences cognition (2016) (nlm.nih.gov)
Because the assumption that small changes in hydration status are readily compensated by homeostatic mechanisms has been little studied, the influence of hypohydration on cognition was examined.

Health, Science, Cognition, Hydration

26 points by domofutu 179 days ago | 4 comments

Controllable Fast and Slow Thinking by Learning with Randomized Reasoning Traces (arxiv.org)
In human cognition theory, human thinking is governed by two systems: the fast and intuitive System 1 and the slower but more deliberative System 2.

Artificial Intelligence, Cognition, Machine Learning, Psychology, Research

44 points by hislaziness 185 days ago | 15 comments

Do Fungi Recognize Shapes? (tohoku.ac.jp)
Can organisms without a brain still show signs of intelligence? Researchers at Tohoku University and Nagaoka College had this question in mind when conducting a study to measure the decision-making processes in fungi. While it may sound like science fiction, this level of basal cognition is possible even in fungi.

Science, Fungi, Cognition, Intelligence

84 points by svilches 191 days ago | 29 comments

Self-experiment with L-theanine: effect on sleep and cognition (metasophi.com)
Many supplements are said to improve sleep, but how can I know if they work for my individual case if the effects are not obvious? To answer this, I ran a self-experiment with L-theanine using this platform.

Self-Experimentation, Sleep, Cognition, Supplements, L-theanine

77 points by sheefrex 201 days ago | 43 comments

Verbal Overshadowing (edge.org)
Suppose that two people witness a crime: one describes in words what they saw, while the other does not. When tested later on their memories of the event, the person who verbally described the incident will be worse at later remembering or recognizing what actually happened. This is verbal overshadowing.

Psychology, Memory, Cognition

17 points by yamrzou 217 days ago | 2 comments

Holding a Program in One's Head (2007) (paulgraham.com)
A good programmer working intensively on his own code can hold it in his mind the way a mathematician holds a problem he's working on.

Programming, Software Development, Cognition

131 points by yamrzou 222 days ago | 109 comments

Study finds grandfathers' workouts enhance grandsons' cognition in mice (psypost.org)
New research published in The Journal of Neuroscience demonstrates that the cognitive benefits of physical exercise can be transmitted transgenerationally from grandfathers to grandsons, suggesting that exercise-induced cognitive improvements may persist across multiple generations.

Science, Genetics, Exercise, Cognition, Mice

5 points by nabla9 225 days ago | 2 comments

Sleep duration, chronotype, health and lifestyle factors affect cognition [pdf] (bmjpublichealth.bmj.com)

Sleep, Health, Cognition, Lifestyle

285 points by susam 229 days ago | 185 comments

Sleep on it: How the brain processes many experiences, even when 'offline' (news.yale.edu)

Sleep, Neuroscience, Brain, Memory, Cognition

434 points by PaulHoule 236 days ago | 137 comments

What happens in a mind that can't 'see' mental images (quantamagazine.org)

Psychology, Neuroscience, Cognition

242 points by VHRanger 267 days ago | 432 comments

A Man Who Thought Too Fast (2020) (newyorker.com)