thinker_jeff

You have the reasoning backward. I don't need to convince you that no qualified research can be found regarding to scientific characteristic of dreaming. Just like if I said there is no perpetual motion machine, I don't need to search for one. If you think there are qualified papers supported your claim, please give me a direct link - one is enough.

Sorry, that is a disqualified source, which has the paper not being peer reviewed and no empirical data to be tested.

SM, I am talking about the characteristic of dreaming, which OP called imagination or meaningful experience. I don't see any scientific results about dreaming content from the search.

It is simple, but painful. We are not kids anymore. The evolution does not make us in this way because there is the speed advantage for the control by emotion. The coginitive output should be more precious in the most conditions; however, it is too slow. The slow resposes cost not only your time but probably your life. Driving a car should be a good example to imagine such advantage.

The characteristic of dreaming has not been a scientific subject yet, despite of what the famous scholars said. The first reason is that we cannot get empirical data about dreaming content. Scientifically, all of the empirical data have to be repeatable by independent researchers. How can you repeat the same dream like that? The sencond, we have no theoretical reference about the awaking brain by which we can understand how scientifically brain activitis relate to human mind. How can we understand the dreaming brain without a theory of brain activitis?

The study is the world's first investigation of how real-time functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) feedback from the brain region responsible for higher-order thoughts, including introspection, affects our ability to control these thoughts. The researchers find that real-time brain feedback significantly improves people's ability to control their thoughts and effectively 'train their brains.' "Just like athletes in training benefit from a coach's guidance, feedback from our brain can help us to be more aware of our thoughts," says co-author Prof. Kalina Christoff, UBC Dept. of Psychology. "Our findings suggest that the ability to control our thinking improves when we know how the corresponding area in our brain is behaving." For the study, published the current issue of NeuroImage journal, participants performed tasks that either raised or lowered mental introspection in 30-second intervals over four six-minute sessions. fMRI technology tracked real-time activity in the rostrolateral prefrontal cortex (RLPFC), the region of the brain involved with higher-order thoughts. Participants with access to real-time fMRI feedback could see their RLPFC activity increase during introspection and decrease during non-introspective thoughts, such as mental tasks that focused on body sensations. These participants used the feedback to guide their thoughts, which significantly improved their ability to control their thoughts and successfully perform the mental tasks. In contrast, participants given inaccurate or no brain feedback did not achieve any improvement in brain regulation. "When participants saw their brain reacting to their thoughts, they knew whether they were performing the task well or poorly, and they could adjust their thoughts accordingly," says co-author Graeme McCaig, a graduate of UBC's Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering's Human Computer Interaction specialization. "As a result, participants who received the real-time feedback were able to focus on the mental task more consistently." The study points to the possibility of improving our everyday lives through fMRI-assisted advances in our ability to focus our minds on personal or professional matters, according to the research team, which includes Matt Dixon, Kamyar Keramatian and Irene Liu. The findings also raise hope for clinical treatments of conditions that can benefit from improved awareness and regulation of one's thoughts, including depression, anxiety, and obsessive-compulsive disorders, the researchers says. For example, with increased availability of fMRI technology, real-time brain feedback represents a potentially important complement to feedback provided by a therapist or a patient's own self-monitoring ability. Link: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/04/110408101740.htm

The discussion about "mirror neuron" has been continued by another topic, "Debate on Mirror Neuron", in the section of "Anatomy, Physiology and Neuroscience". http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/56326-debate-on-mirror-neuron/

Is unconscious judgment possible? Yes, it is more than possible, in most cases is inevitable. Why? Because our brains have established lots of emotional memories. You have some memories about some young kids' behavior and the clothes they wore when you saw their behavior. These memories associated with the emotions when you saw them, such as surprising or aversion. Therefore, your cognitive memories have associated certain emotions, which are emotional memories. Emotion can be triggered unconsciously in the most condition. When you see a new kid who wears the same kind of clothe your remembered, such memory triggered the associated emotion unconsciously. This emotion will make your impression about this kid biased to your impression about the previous one. This is where the unconscious judgment comes from. When you go to a new country with totally different culture, you won't have much of unconscious judgment because there are very less emotional memory in your brain.

I think that the third person can tell who is sincere or not. The thread is for everyone to see what should be the correct understanding. You're still arguing like this: Really? You figure out "approximately 550 nm" color is 564 nm because Answers' monitor (type, model and age). Good story.

Wrong. Please look the following explanation. The C.I.E. Color Space The CIE system characterizes colors by a luminance parameter Y and two color coordinates x and y which specify the point on the chromaticity diagram. This system offers more precision in color measurement than do the Munsell and Ostwald systems because the parameters are based on the spectral power distribution (SPD) of the light emitted from a colored object and are factored by sensitivity curves which have been measured for the human eye. Based on the fact that the human eye has three different types of color sensitive cones, the response of the eye is best described in terms of three "tristimulus values". However, once this is accomplished, it is found that any color can be expressed in terms of the two color coordinates x and y. The colors which can be matched by combining a given set of three primary colors (such as the blue, green,a nd red of a color television screen) are represented on the chromaticity diagram by a triangle joining the coordinates for the three colors. http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/vision/cie.html

I am sincere as far as in this topic. At first I said that the color you picked is good for the background, which you specified at 564 nm. Then you left the question from OP and said the best color should be at 550 nm, that you claimed that "it is the best color when the background could be anything." If you do understand the contrast of color, how can you have two different results? Why is the second statement incorrect?

It will be the worst color for the background color at 550 nm! We need scientific understanding, not just searching.

The big deal of the discovery is related to action understanding unconsciously. The pioneer researchers in this field claimed that the response when the monkey observed other monkey’s motor acting toward the object is unconscious effect. Of course they had some data supported this point. If this had been held up, and if this had been discovered in humans, it should be very important to cognitive science. Such as empathy in babies and unstoppable sympathy in adults are hopefully related with this discovery. You can find the answer in the paper you sent to me, which is in the section “2. Action understanding can be achieved via non-mirror neuron mechanisms”. Like I said, the biggest controversy is if mirror neuron made action understanding unconsciously. The secondary controversy is if it existed in humans.

This color is good for the background of the picture. But remember, it won't be always good for different backgrounds. 555 nm is the best color for perfect dark background, which has been written in the textbooks. If the background is a sunny beach, guess what? The color giving you the best contrast is RED!

I want to be clear that I have no direct research experience on "mirror neuron" although I have been interested on this concept for years. The reason for me to start this topic is because SMF challenged my opinion about mirror neuron in another topic. I owe a clear explanation to him, especially because of a quality source he provided. (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2773693/?tool=pmcentrez) I like to hear the argument about the concept of mirror neuron from the people in this forum, especially from neuroscientists. Here are my opinions about mirror neuron: 1. Mirror neurons were discovered in frontal area F5 of the macaque monkey since 1990s. These neurons responded during the execution of hand and/or mouth movements toward objects, and were activated when the monkey observed other monkey's same motor movements toward the same objects. The empirical data has been held up for more than 10 years. This is the basis of the concept of mirror neurons. 2. Does the mirror neurons' response represent the action understanding? It has been arguable since beginning. I have to say "I don't know" after I read the article provided by SMF. 3. Do human beings have mirror neurons? There are no direct data as the findings on monkeys. It seems that all of the indirect data supporting mirror neurons in humans are arguable. 4. The difficulty to human subjects is ethical because we do not allow putting probes into their cortex. That is correct but unfortunate to neuroscience. 5. Since there is no evidence to show that mirror neurons exist in non-primate animals we have reason to assume that the functionality of mirror neurons was evolved to primates. Thus, we have reason to assume that such functionality might keep in humans or extend by evolution in humans. I will stop right here and listen to your arguments.

God bless your monitor!

CaptainPanic is in the correct diretion for this topic. OP needs a better contrast setting in your game design, not better sensitivity to the visual object. Generally there are two kinds of contrast: the contrast of brightness and the contrast of color. The contrast of brightness depends on the ratio of brightness between visual object and background. For a light source with pulse wavelength, ~555 nm is the most sensitive to your eyes in brightness, which means that the object with this wavelength in dark background should have the highest contrast subjectively. The contrast of color depends on the wavelength difference between the object and background. The human eyes are more sensitive for the difference between RED and GREEN. If you have a mixed color on the background, the best contrast for the object should be some color between ~555 nm and red. That's why "optical yellow" is good color for tennis ball on TV.

SM, let me digest the first article before I open a new topic for mirror neuron. It may take a while because I can only read it in off-work time. I still don't want to spend my time for the second one that has not been peer reviewed.

I haven't told you what is my concept about mirror neuron so that you shouldn't think too much. Your first artical is a serious one which we can discuss, but the second one is just a Blog which I don't care that much. I don't know if you notice that the panel of "Psychiatry and Psychology" may be removed on Monday, which is a very bad news, so that we should open a new topic about mirror neuron in the panel of "Anatomy, Physiology and Neuroscience".

SM, I have never said that such concept relates to Mirror Neuron. If you think that is the concept well accepted by neuroscientists studying about mirror neuron, please give the source.

It is OK that you are in the "second chunk" (as PhDwannable's wording); however, comparing the "mirror neuron" to the "yellow Volkswagen detector neuron" is not scientificlly correct. There are many empirical data to support the concept of mirror neuron. I'm not saying that the concept has been robust, but you have to give empirical data to abandon it.

The good thing is that you should have more chances in this field than in the classic one.

I've got an idea - It might be able to be used in helicopter for fire department. You know, the fire-fighting for skyscrapers is still the world-class challenge. The equipments on ground cannot reach high enough; and the helicopters cannot carry enough water. If the new fire extinguisher could be extended from a helicopter, it would a big help to control fire on the high levels.

This may be the cool invention to be used in the future. But, how can it reach far enough like the water gun does?

I agree with you that is the situation by now. I am on the positive side (the first chunk). Just for curiousity, which side is yours?