deepstash
Beta
The Cheerleader Effect
The Average Face
As we tend to view an individual to be like the group they are associated with, the face of the individual is blended with other faces in the group, making it more attractive that it may be.
The average face is also high in its attractiveness quotient, as it provides the features that are the most common.
28 SAVES
2 READS
SIMILAR ARTICLES & IDEAS:
6
Key Ideas
About Consciousness
Consciousness is everything you experience - taste, pain, love, feeling. Where these experiences come from is a mystery.
Many modern analytic philosophers of mind either d...
Searching For Physical Footprints
What is it about brain matter that gives rise to consciousness? In particular, the neuronal correlates of consciousness (NCC) - the minimal neuronal mechanisms jointly sufficient for any conscious experience.
Consider this question: What must happen in your brain for you to experience a toothache?
Neuronal Correlates of Consciousness (NCC)
The whole brain can be considered an NCC because it generates experience continually.
- When parts of the cerebellum, the "little brain" underneath the back of the brain, are lost to a stroke or otherwise, patients may lose the ability to play the piano, for example. But they never lose any aspect of their consciousness. This is because the cerebellum is almost wholly a feed-forward circuit. There are no complex feedback loops.
- The spinal cord and the cerebellum are not enough to create consciousness. Available evidence suggests neocortical tissue in generating feelings.
- The next stages of processing are the broad set of cortical regions, collectively known as the posterior hot zone, that gives rise to conscious perception. In clinical sources of causal evidence, stimulating the posterior hot zone can trigger a diversity of distinct sensations and feelings.
- It appears that almost all conscious experiences have their origin in the posterior cortex. But it does not explain the crucial difference between the posterior regions and much of the prefrontal cortex, which does not directly contribute to subjective content.
5
Key Ideas
How we interpret gaze
- We give gaze physical properties.
- We create implicit mental programmes in which the visual attention of others is understood as a forceful beam emitted from the viewer’s eye and di...
Gazing is an essential form of communication
It can synchronize activities and convey social dynamics without a gesture or spoken word.
It requires a quick interpretation and explanation of the meaning behind another person's gaze, but the trade-off for the speed of that interpretation is the mistaken understanding of gaze as something that can move things in our environment.
The “extramission” theory of vision
Extramission means “sending out,” and the extramission theory is the belief that vision is a force emitted from the eye. It is an intuitive understanding of vision common among children that persists among many adults.
In contrast, the modern visual theory is called “intromission,” and is based on the notion that vision results from light entering the eyes.
3
Key Ideas
A Good Sense Of Humor
- Humor has many practical uses, like diffusing a difficult situation, masking one’s nervousness, coping with failure and softening the criticism doled out to someone.
- Humor works ...
The Perfect Formula Of Funny
According to philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, humor is derived from a sudden unmatching or unexpected outcome of an event, which had in our minds a specific expectation. This causes a mild ‘violation’ in our minds, which creates the humor.
Non-Words
In a series of experiments, it was found that the greater the ‘violation of the expected outcome’ the greater the humor feels. It also found that certain non-words, which are a combination of letter strings (like digifin, or artorts) but have no dictionary meaning, are the most consistent in their funniness rating.
Non-words with low entropy(the extent of them being unexpected) seem to offer more surprise, and therefore, get a higher humor rating.