Posts tagged: psychology
1. Naturalist Intelligence (“Nature Smart”)
Designates the human ability to discriminate among living things (plants, animals) as well as sensitivity to other features of the natural world (clouds, rock configurations). This ability was clearly of value in our evolutionary past as hunters, gatherers, and farmers; it continues to be central in such roles as botanist or chef. It is also speculated that much of our consumer society exploits the naturalist intelligences, which can be mobilized in the discrimination among cars, sneakers, kinds of makeup, and the like.
2. Musical Intelligence (“Musical Smart”)
Musical intelligence is the capacity to discern pitch, rhythm, timbre, and tone. This intelligence enables us to recognize, create, reproduce, and reflect on music, as demonstrated by composers, conductors, musicians, vocalist, and sensitive listeners. Interestingly, there is often an affective connection between music and the emotions; and mathematical and musical intelligences may share common thinking processes. Young adults with this kind of intelligence are usually singing or drumming to themselves. They are usually quite aware of sounds others may miss.
1. Deja vu
Deja vu is an experience of having seen or experienced a new situation previously. It feels like if the event has already happened before. The experience is usually accompanied by a strong sense of familiarity and a sense of paradox or bizarre. The “previous” experience is usually attributed to a dream, but sometimes there is a constant feeling that it really has happened in the past.
2. Deja Vecu
Deja vecu is what most people experience when they think they are having a deja vu. Deja vu is when one has a feeling that he has seen something before, whereas deja vecu is an experience of having seen an event before, but with great detail as to recognize the smells and sounds. This also is usually accompanied by a very strong sense ofknowledge about what will happen next.
3. Deja senti
Deja senti is a phenomenon of having already felt something. The phrase “I have felt it before” perfectly captures deja senti. It is only a mental phenomenon and seldom remains in our memory later. Many epileptic patients often experience deja senti.
1. Being diagnosed with depression doesn’t mean you are crazy, weak, or a failure.
2. Often depression runs in families.
3. There is a link between low self-esteem and depression.
4. Experiencing a significant loss, or coping with an ongoing stressful situation, are both common causes of depression.
5. Negative thought patterns and core beliefs can contribute to negative moods and feelings of depression. They can also make it more difficult to fight and cope with depression.
6. Although depression can be devastating to both sufferers and their families, the good news is that depression generally responds to treatment. For example, there is a large body of literature confirming the effectiveness of both CBT and antidepressant medications.
A New Focus on the ‘Post’ in Post-Traumatic Stress
Psychological trauma dims tens of millions of lives around the world and helps create costs of at least $42 billion a year in the United States alone. But what is trauma, exactly?
Both culturally and medically, we have long seen it as arising from a single, identifiable disruption. You witness a shattering event, or fall victim to it — and as the poet Walter de la Mare put it, “the human brain works slowly: first the blow, hours afterward the bruise.” The world returns more or less to normal, but you do not.
In 1980, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders defined trauma as “a recognizable stressor that would evoke significant symptoms of distress in almost everyone” — universally toxic, like a poison.
But it turns out that most trauma victims — even survivors of combat, torture or concentration camps — rebound to live full, normal lives. That has given rise to a more nuanced view of trauma — less a poison than an infectious agent, a challenge that most people overcome but that may defeat those weakened by past traumas, or other factors.
Now, a significant body of work suggests that even this view is too narrow — that the environment just after the event, particularly other people’s responses, may be just as crucial as the event itself.
The idea was demonstrated vividly in two presentations this fall at the Interdisciplinary Conference on Culture, Mind and Brain at the University of California, Los Angeles. Each described reframing a classic model of traumatic experience — one in lab rats, the other in child soldiers.
Repeated Knocks to the Head Leads to Newly Recognized Brain Disease
Reports on the danger of head trauma in athletes and soldiers has pervaded the news in recent years. NFL and NHL player deaths have catapulted this problem into the limelight, with stories appearing in the New York Times, NPR, ESPN, 60 Minutes and even television entertainment shows. Media attention has raced far ahead of the science on this degenerative condition. But scientists are catching on. They have given this disease its own definition—chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). Different from traumatic brain injury, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, or ALS, they say CTE can strike adult and youths alike. Special coverage by Alzforum, the leading news source on Alzheimer’s and related diseases research, summarizes the status of research in this burgeoning field as researchers take steps to diagnose and treat CTE.
BrainHealth Team Studies Overeating as a Type of Addiction
A similar, insidious craving plagues all addicts, no matter the substance of choice. A new study published in NeuroImage from Center for BrainHealth scientists Dr. Francesca Filbey, assistant professor in the School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences, and doctoral student Samuel DeWitt has found that for binge-eaters, as with all addiction sufferers, the compulsion to overeat is rooted in the brain’s reward center.
Mickey Hart, Grateful Dead percussionist, and neurologist Adam Gazzaley, M.D., Ph.D., professor at the University of California San Francisco made history by becoming the first to sonify and visualize brain activity in real time in front of a live audience. The two did so at the closing session of Life @50+, the AARP National Event & Expo in New Orleans on September 22nd.
The 5 key components of Emotional Intelligence are:
1. Self-Awareness – People who scores highly on emotional intelligence are described as being high in self-awareness. They know what they are feeling and why; they know what triggers their emotions and what…
