Encephalon #59 @ Ionian Enchantment

Recently put up is the latest edition of Encephalon, at Ionian Enchantment. I'll get around to posting something other than links to the Encephalon editions sooner or later, but I'm afraid my blog is less of a priority than getting work done for my PhD... :-) Anyways, my three posts of particular interest in this fortnight's compilation:

- From Mind Hacks is a short piece on the Ganzfeld procedure: a method often used to induce hallucinations. Is it just me, or is the last hallucination that Vaughan mentions slightly disturbing...

- Physical exercise and 'brain health' from Sharp Brains

- Something that I found of particular interest is a review of a paper by Clark and Wheeler on Embodied cognition and cultural evolution, at Neuroanthropology. It's a long (but very good) review of the paper and the concepts involved, but helpfully some of the more important points are highlighted. Essentially, the problem is as follows (copied from article):

Whereas embodied cognition models the brain as a product of dynamic
interplay among processes at different time-scales — evolutionary,
developmental, and immediate –, evolutionary psychologists tend to assume the
existence of underlying, enduring structures in the brain, shaped by natural
selection and encoded (even where we cannot find evidence) in genetic
structures.

As far as I'm concerned a fascinating review of a paper which I will now endeavor to get my grubby little hands on...