Narco Analysis, Compusense and BPS certification

1.Narco Analysis
In criminal psychology, these exists one area which uses so-called truth drug to elicit true answer from criminals. And administration of such drugs are called narco analysis( narco analysis method of interrogation, in chinese it's called"
麻醉分析讯问法"）
. For more info, go to wikipedia.

2.Compusense sense labratory solution
According to one job description at 51job, Compusense is a commercial software needed while establishing labratories of taste. In google scholar, I've found no psychological researcher with compusense specialty. Interesting.

3.BPS certification
British Psychological Society may be as large as the renowned American Psychological Association. It has a variety of certifications of psychological assessments(level A, level B).Among psychological best practices, SHL specialises psychological assessment. In fact, SHL is a UK-based company. So this fact tells me that if you want to join SHL, you must first get certification from BPS. It's the same to engineering psychology and user centered design. Human Factors International(HFI) is a best practice in this field and it business is mainly focused on certification and training.

Google's Adsense and Psycholinguistics

Adsense is one of google's profitable tools. Its tech is based on Applied Semantics acquired（Chinese：收购） by Google in 2003. Applied Semantics uses a tech called CIRCA(patented information maybe seen at here and here). In its tech's introduction, it tells it's based on Cognitive Psychologist George Miller's Wordnet. This person may be called the founder or key role in modern cognitive perspective to human psy. His main contribution is in language and semantics(psycholinguistics, which uses cognitive perspective to study language).
Today, Wordnet has been used widely in Natural Language Processing(NLP). Other important resources for NLP(English) maybe British National Corpus. As for Chinese, it's Penn Treebank Project. Tks for Alex00zee at douban for directions.


This phenomenon is very surprising cauz google's horizon on science from several cutting edge and well flourished scientific disciplines. Why not to study the spread of science and decide your next M&A(merge and acquisition, in fact large companies often buys tech advanced small companies to keep their competence)?

Next phase, I will cover human 2.0 and one of google's geek ambition: technology singularity, transhumanism.

Indeed, with NBIC convergence and neuroengineering(neuroinformatics), I feel I've become a transhumanist. Maybe one day I'll join transhumanism.org.

Long time no see friends:)

I'm coming back. Currently I've proposed a neuroengineering salon in Shanghai. Welcome to join.

Today we'll talked about two areas:
1.Psychoacoustic modeling:
Google.org.cn (in Chinese) has reported that some employees of G thought it was useful to let browser understand user's request verbally. So they used a technique called psychoacoustic modeling. It reminded me the important field of sensory psychology. Excluding vision science, there exists such scientific area which models acoustic phenomena. It's very exciting!!

2.Psychological Assessment Best Practice:
In business domain, a best practice may be refered to Fortune 500. And what dominates their personnel recruiting process is a service based on psychological testing. I've found some top consulting MNC(multinational company) and investment bank using performence test offered by a company called SHL. Interestingly, its scientific board director is former chair of one committee of British Psychological Society(BPS).
Mckinsey also uses top educational testing service called "Mckinsey Caselets" offered by ETS which creats God Red English(GRE, graduate record examination).It's interesting since I've never realised the popularity and high end application of psychological testing and assessment among top companies.

Robot solves puzzles with Nokia N95 camera

乐高机器人（乐高这个著名的模型制造商有可能是高端机械发烧友的主要供应商）、机器视觉（N95手机）、问题解决（人工智能）、还有一个莫名的ARM架构。

Robot solves puzzles with Nokia N95 camera.

Seems very interesting.



http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMTQ5NzQxODAw.html

About vocal DOD tech：A summary

Vocal DOD tech means using vocal analyser to analyse psychological factors of sound including tone, loudness, musical quality.

According to wiki, vocal analyser DOD tech is named "Voice Stress Analysis" or specifically "Layered Voice Test"(also from wiki). It is mainly used in airports and some insurance companies to detect lying. However, Deception blog has lots of articles indicating it doesn't work.

Unfortunately, I haven't found any other test equipments so famous like polygraph to analyse sound's psychfactor and detect lies. But we do see Lock("Lie to Me") used unfamiliar device to decompose subject's voice. What's that? I guess it won't be voice stress analysis software "X13-VSA".

Anyway, consulting expert might be a better choice. I've found one in Chine. Her name is Cuiling Zhang and her book(in Chinese) has lots of details of vocal lie detection esp. in Chapter 2.

Quirkology: Fun and Elevator

http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMTI4MzQyMTQw.html


Detailed information is here.
http://www.thefuntheory.com/

Barack Obama and Psychology

Honestly speaking Obama is a president full of different working styles when compared to former US presidents (at least I think so).

One I believe is his choice of psychology application to a lately established(? see below) government section called Consumer Financial Protection Agency( CFPA) to help US recover from 2009 great depression. Insterestingly I've not found it at US gov website. However, US Chamber of Commerce has established a website to tell mass "STOP the CFPA".

Whatever, this department has an origin deeply rooted in psychology with Nobel Laureate Kahneman's research at the intersection between psychology and economics. It's called behavioral economics in economics or decision making in experimental psychology. And thanks to Kahneman's collaborator Sunstein, a law professor once in Chicago with B. Obama, this field has been introduced to US government.

Further information could be read at websites listed below:

1. http://www.douban.com/subject/3541320/ (the book "Nudge")
   
2. http://www.douban.com/subject/4022709/ (the book "Nudge" Chinese)
   
3. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124545477468032915.html(WSJ)
4. http://chn.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2009/06/24/20090624000030.html (Chinese introduction)
   

Cold spring harbour asia conference center

Suzhou

Cold Spring Harbor Asia conferences will be held at Suzhou Dushu Lake Conference Center in Suzhou, China, sixty miles west of Shanghai and in easy reach of international and domestic airports. Suzhou is an ancient city known as the Venice of China, famous for its canals and private gardens and home to scholars for more than two millenia. Symposia, conferences and summer schools follow the Cold Spring Harbor tradition in showcasing merit-based scientific advances in an informal but intense atmosphere.

To encourage participation by significant international participation from throughout Asia, Europe and the Americas, the language of all programs will be English.

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And this place intends to cooperate with Shanghai neuroscience insitute, Chinese academy of sciences according to MumingPU at here（Chinese）

What's Neurotech?

I created this blog about 1 year ago, and today it's almost one year(01/31/09-01/23/10, GMT+8). Cauz this anniversary, I've recently read about IC(Intelligence Community)'s report on neurotech from emerging cognitive neuroscience(uploaded in Google group) and will tell readers briefly what neurotech will cover according to it.

The report offered a complete framework on cognitive neuroscience fields including:

-Detection of deception tech with the help of neuroimaging

-Neuroimaging systems with real time brain activity measurement and implications for coaching and mind control esp. for military purpose

-Neuropsychopharmacology and nanobiomedicine tech to develop enhancers like cognitive, affective and sensory

-Computational biological models and artificial intelligence which work hard to replicate "mind" outside human body

-Distributed human machine system
-Brain computer interface
-Cyborg which means part of human body (usually motor system) is replaced by machine
-Cognitive Cyborg which means part of human advanced brain function is replaced
-Intelligent robot assistant

And within those tech, drug enhancers and distributed human machine system are predicted to be closest to reality and maybe societal change.

Neuroengineering institute in China

Neuroengineering is the subfield of biomedical engineering. It seems more related to NBIC and Psychology.

Here is the list without institute ranking information:

1.Tianjin Neural Engineering Research Center, TNERC
2.Institute of Neural Engineering, TsingHua University
3.Research Center of Neural Engineering, Shenzheng Institute of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences
4.Wuhan Insitute of Neuroscience & Neuroengineering, South Central University of Nationalities
5.Research Center of Neuroscience & Neuroengineering, Shanghai Jiaotong University Med-X Institute

==========

East China Normal University also has an institute named nbic.ecnu.edu.cn(only a mail server, but offers a lot).

Can monkeys help your investment?

Quote "This article mainly focuses on the debate on monkey's investment ability and its anecdotes. I've sent it to my friends in finance department but no reply, and to 52brain.com neuroeconomics forum also no rely. What's wrong? The research made by psychologist is interesting and it may cover such topics like the book "Nudge" & behavioral portfolio (company) by famous decision making research scientist Thaler. Huge gap, huh?"

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In "Quirkology", prof. Richard Wiseman mentioned two famous/infamous psychological experiment about monkey like portfolio on stocks. In both two experiments, one invested by a little girl via picking up scraps of paper and another by a champzine called Aula(in Chinese edition, "奥拉") via dart throwing, so called random selections beat financial professionals.

I was surprised at that time. How could this happen? As I know, financial professionals use logical/statistical mathematical tools analyse the stock information and gain market insights. Among them, Black-Scholes Option Pricing model may be the most widely used one. And this field is not magic but has a formal academic name called "Econophysics"(see this book in Chinese). In this industry, Renaissance hedge fund may be the most famous company based on such models and gain great market success as well. Most of its employees are mathematical graduates from top US universities(however they lack Wall Street working background, and Wall Street is the famous place where top financial companies locate). They call themselves "Quants"(in Chinese 宽客）(see this book in Chinese).

Based on these facts, I think it isn't possible for them (those who use rigid mathematical models like Renaissance, not those in Wall Street) to lose. As for those in Wall street, indeed, Wall Street Journal established a contest between random selection of stocks and those financial professionals from 1988 to 2002. It is to respond prof. Burton Malkiel's "A Random Walk Down Wall Street". The contest ended without delaration of any winner. More details can be found here and here. The 14 contest's outcome seems interesting (the graph can be found here).

Though professionals beat the "monkeys" (dart selection), the percentages they outperform over them aren't larger enough.

I hope these words will help readers and myself as well:). For more info, pls google for keywords
"飞镖选股法", "darts portfolio" and "monkey business".

--------------------

Term explanation

- In English, monkey business originally means fraud business like Bernard Madoff but here it is really made by monkeys or random dart throwing.

Neural prosthesis and neural engineering

In medicine there are two ways to save people's lives. One is medicine which uses drug to cure without any damage of human body. The other is surgery which uses invasive operation.

Thus we can divide neural scientific applications into those two ways.

Biomedical engineering has a subfield called neural prosthesis, neural regeneration, or neural restoration.(in chinese:神经修复）

Two important techs of neural prosthesis, cyborg( BCI or HMI ) and brain function enhancement drugs, are very similar to them. The former belongs to surgery, and the latter belongs to medicine.

I guess as for some molecule level, surgical operations will be useless because biostructure is too small. But at cell level, it seems both ways are OK. For larger biostructure, surgical operations will take its role. Am I right? Pls tell me your opinion. It would be highly appreciated.

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If disabled people use BCI they get cured. If normal people get it they become cyborg or human v2.0.

If psychiatric patient and those who have brain function disorder get enhancement drugs they get cured. If normal get them they become (no formal term) "superman"?

From patient to normal, neural prosthesis becomes neural engineering.

Psychosocialpharmacology

Almost every stakeholder in today's scientific community know science itself should be unique which probably means beneath its cover there may be found one structure which can explain or unite all relevant concepts or theories. The example in physics may be "string theory".

But in completely different sciences such as social psychology which studies human behavior in social situations and pharmacology a so-called natural science or biological science, history tells us there was a wide gap. Now a Chinese scholar tries to narrow it by exclaiming a new discipline he calls "psychosocialpharmacology".

Chinese information could be retrieved here. His and his colleague's paper about it has been accepted by at least one journal "British Journal of Pharmacology" (in pubmed).

Positive Neuroscience awards

Maybe friends who go abroad knows Templeton foundation, which put money into essential questions like "Can evolution explain human nature?"

Today it suddenly comes to me the idea "Positive Neuroscience". When I google it, interestingly I find U. of Pennsylvania and Templeton foundation have established a award for innovative research in the intersection between positive psychology (which give insights about human positive mental function like happiness) and neuroscience.

Science had a report about it.

Submission of research has reached the deadline (Sep. 30, 2009). What a pity:).

Maybe it will become another research trend of psychological research or NBIC related topics.

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或许出国的朋友都很清楚，美国的Templeton基金会是专门投资研究某些深奥哲学问题（或本质问题）的一个著名组织。例如进化能解释人类本性吗？

今天突然想到积极神经科学这个词，网上一搜。很巧，就在今年8月份，宾夕法尼亚大学建立了Templeton积极神经科学奖，用于鼓励神经科学与积极心理学的交叉研究。

Science对它做了报道。

很可惜，我查到的时候该奖项已经停止了申请（该链接在大陆已被墙。。。）。




各位群里研究积极心理学的朋友，请多和神经科学家交流。这会是下一个热潮吗？

“纳米机器人面面观”与“机器视觉”

howstaffworks.com is a world leading DIY website. It can be frequently seen in douban as website recommendations.

Its chinese version (science.bowenwang.com.cn) offers a lot about advanced techs. Recently I saw two of them related to Brain Science.

One talks about nano machine by Jonathan Strickland. As in everyday experience, robots have some human like functions such as manufacturing, moving. So it has already been used at least in auto manufacture industry. Nano robot uses nano tech to produce robot that can reproduce itself using resources from the enviroment, like virus, and can move or repair some microstructures in human body, like cell. Most importantly, it can also be navigated/controlled using tracking tech like MRI outside human body.

However, what kind of material this little robot is made of is still unknown as I know. Possibly it is made by nano silicon tech or synthetic biology tech. Both have the chance to revolutionize what we call human. If you have played game Metal Gear Solid(TM) 4, you will see nano robots' function. In it, soldiers are controlled by it and become emotional modifiable, cognitive enchanced, and psychotelepathy among a group of soldiers because of communication ablity between nano robots.

Another article talks about computer vision. Here I will not cover the details because I don't know much about it. This tech may be useful in neuroscience/psychology simulation. Computerized human sense is the next frontier in computational neuroscience. Today's neurosciences related to cognitive function, and those done by neuroscientists, mostly cover topics like vision, memory. In engineering, those field will soon become computer X like topics.

【转载】美科学家首次成功遥控机械昆虫飞行

source:http://www.sciencenet.cn/htmlnews/2009/10/224133.shtm

据国外媒体报道，一个由美国五角大楼资助的机械昆虫研发项目的测试日前取得成功，在科学家当中引发了浓厚的兴趣。

美国加州大学伯克利分校的开发人员对“机械甲虫”的测试取得了成功。视频片段显示，一名男子通过笔记本电脑，遥控甲虫在房间到处“飞行”。它一度被拴在透明塑料板上，微小的肢体随操作人员的操纵杆不断颤动。开发人员迈克尔·马哈尔比兹 (Michel Maharbiz)和佐藤隆(Hirotaka Sato)在接受最新一期《神经科学前沿》杂志采访时说：“我们通过一个安装有无线电的可植入微型神经刺激系统，演示了对昆虫自由飞行的遥控。”

据英国谢菲尔德大学机器人技术和人工智能学教授诺埃尔·萨基(Noel Sharkey)介绍，尽管控制诸如蟑螂等昆虫的尝试并不是什么新鲜事，但这却是研究人员首次成功遥控飞行昆虫。最令他好奇的是，加州大学伯克利分校的研究最终将应用于军事领域。据悉，开发人员在甲虫处于蛹期生长阶段时向其植入电极。

萨基教授表示：“之所以这样做，是因为我们对纳米技术已有了更深入的了解，可以制作出能让我们做到这一点的微型探测器。将电子装置植入其神经系统控制肌肉，当它飞行时，如果你多给左侧的肌肉施以更多力量，它的飞行就会变得困难起来，这可以让你控制它的飞行方向。”

加州大学伯克利分校的研究团队使用的甲虫来自喀麦隆，有人手掌那么大，这让萨基迷惑不解。他说：“电子装置太重，小甲虫就无法携带其飞行。他们可以遥控甲虫的肌肉，但甲虫其实不能飞起来，我不太清楚他们是如何做的。我们谈论的是飞机或飞机模型等飞行物体的有效载荷，即它停留在空中时所能携带的有效载荷。”

“既然有了这些大个昆虫，他们就可以将电子仪器植入它的身上。例如，由于这项研究将应用于军事领域，它必须要携带GPS接收器和发射器，以便他们可以辨别飞虫所在的方位。”萨基还介绍说，如果没有安装适当镜头的摄像机，“机械甲虫”并不能顺利完成侦察任务。他说：“按照当前法律规定，使用这种装置法完全不合法。其他的用途还包括携带某种化学和生化武器，所以，个人可以从事暗杀活动了。”

加州大学伯克利分校的研究团队在研究报告中写道，机械甲虫可以充当“小型飞行器”的有用模板。资助这项研究的美国国防高级研究计划局(DARPA)一直在研制纳米飞行器(NAV)。据国防高级研究计划局的官方网站介绍，纳米飞行器超小、超轻，长不足7.5厘米，重不到10克，“将为战斗人员提供史无前例的城市任务行动能力”。

加州大学伯克利分校的科学家表示，机械甲虫本身能“充当人员或陆上机器人不易靠近的地点的向导”。除了甲虫，他们还在研究苍蝇、飞蛾、蜻蜓，因为“它们都具有无与伦比的飞行能力，以及人们了解越来越深入的肌肉和神经系统”。萨基教授承认，这种概念变成现实或许还需要10年或20年的时间。

他笑着说：“这确实是令人毛骨悚然的家伙。我现在还能笑得出来，但这的确是一种危险的工具。还记得怀特兄弟吗？在很多喜剧电影中，当怀特兄弟尝试驾驶飞机飞行时，每一个人都嘲笑他们。现在，机械甲虫就处于这个阶段。”无论美国五角大楼的无人机舰队最终是否会装备昆虫发射或侦察飞行器，加州大学伯克利分校的研究都会增加我们对飞行的理解。萨基说：“揭示昆虫飞行动力学和生物力学之谜大有裨益。相比于军方，科学家从中获取的知识和经验会更多。”

更多阅读

英国广播公司相关报道（英文）

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Comments:

Early this year, MIT technology review made biological robot as its 2009 ten major technologies（www.neurosociety.co.cc/2009/02/mit-2009.html ）. Luckily, at the end of this year, this tech advances and comes into say for civil use, though some may think it has already been used in DARPA sponsered projects for military use.

I think this animal brain-machine interface is readable-writable. The future of it is awesome. As far as I know, most BMI techs of human are read only and those writable tech also can't be used in the cell level. So its pragmatic use is limited: for disabled and for playing games. However, implantable BMI for human，say Libra DBS like devices, may be of great use.

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本博客评论尝试使用英文写作，练练英文啊：）

深度线索

今天，早早起来看《人的意识》。书中的一句话引起了我的注意：“任何方一个学过绘画的人都体会出这种体验。学习的过程看起来远不只关于如何使用笔，墨或颜料，而更多的是关于看事物的新方式或者如何直接地看事物，而不被你认为应该是怎样的这类想法分心”。
脑中立即冒出一个概念：知觉的恒常性，同一个物体，你从不同的远近与角度看，物体在你视网膜中的成像会不同，但你并不会认为这个物体发生了什么变化。
马上翻阅《认知心理学》知觉.深度视学这一节：“当你开车时，你在用深度来估计迎面开来的车的距离，……，邻近刺激投射到视网膜上是二维的，而你知觉到的是三维空间，这是如何发生的呢？
人们利用的是深度线索。单眼深度线索（monocular depth cues）与双眼深度线索（binocular depth cues）。单眼深度线索包括：  插入（interposition）    空气透视（aerial perspective）    阴影（shading）    线条透视（liner perspective）    结构级差（texture gradients）    相对大小（relative size）    熟悉大小（familiar size）    运动视差（motion parallax）    调节（accommodation）  。双眼深度线索：辐合（convergence）    双眼视差（binocular disparity）。
在平面图画上知觉到立体感就是利用这些单眼深度线索。要在平面图画上表现出立体感，就要在图画中展示这些单眼深度线索。
记得，小学数学老师张国义，一次在黑板上画了一个正方体。刚开始不知道在画什么，一个正方形加上几个模七竖八八的线条。画好后我很惊讶，黑板上呈现的是一个正方体。完全想不到一个正方形加上几个不规则图形会表现出立体效果。
这些天，学习flash，换个方式观察习以为常的事物，思考事物在视网膜的，而不脑中的图象。在画图中利用好深度线索，绘出更具真实感的图。
wikipedia depth perception

转载-2009年诺贝尔经济学奖的意义

Photo: J. Lokrantz/Azote

Elinor Ostrom

Indiana University

http://labs.chinamobile.com/mblog/58921_28850

只关注其中一位诺奖得主

恭喜奥斯特罗姆成为2009诺贝尔经济学奖得主之一

"for her analysis of economic governance, especially the commons"



伊莲娜·奥斯特罗姆是诺贝尔经济学奖历史上首次发给女性，罗宾逊夫人曾与之失之交臂。她的获奖的另外一个意义是多了一个诺贝尔奖得主支持神经经济学。

How do we integrate the research findings in cognitive science into a workable set of models for exploring and explaining human choices in various institutional settings, including: social dilemmas, collective choice arenas, bureaucracies, and complex multitiered public economies?

当然伊莲娜关心的主要是神经经济学和认知科学理论在制度分析中的应用。但无疑也是一个强有力的支持。这也是自道格拉斯·诺思，弗农·史密斯以来，第三位对神经经济学有力支持的诺贝尔奖获得者。对于学科发展有好处。

每日心理学之看穿心理学

虽然有段时间没发文章了，不过作者处于休整期。。。不说丧气话哈：）

今天带来的是一个总结，主要是因为与心理学家所具有的洞察能力有关的学术成果都已经出书了，而且有中文版。

因为我本来专业不是心理学（辅修的），所以常听人说心理学能看穿别人。以前我曾经接触过一些企业界的朋友，听他说他认识一个心理学的人通过一支笔、一张纸，让被测者转一下笔就能知道它大概是什么样的人。当时他这么一说我也知道那是瞎扯，真正的测验肯定没有看上去那么伪科学，当然排除例如沙盘游戏这样的投射测验（便于非专业人士理解，再说一个测验：罗夏墨迹测验）。

无论你是否属于喜欢心理学的人，对于非专业人士而言，年轻女性对星座的爱好本身就表明这里有一个巨大的缺口存在，亟需心理学家的科学研究进去填补。而对于非专业人士而言，我们也会被经常问到“你能看出我在想些什么吗？”。呵呵，当然我也被问过这样的问题，但是当时我的回答是我能（至少部分能，至少只要你还没老就能看出你是真笑还是假笑）。

为什么心理学家或者心理学专业学生对这类问题嗤之以鼻呢（不要怪我没做调查，我想每一个心理学的学生都会面临这个问题）？我想一个重要原因是我们还不够专业，更深的原因是学校里的心理学不会教或者根本就没有听说过这种东西。。。所以当别人问起来的时候我们也只能无言以对，凭借大陆的心理学水平，我想这个只能是无奈的现实。

但是现在好了，网络与出版业的相对自由带给我们很多课业之外心理学的东西。这不仅给我们带来了例如津巴多的经典教材《心理学与生活》，还有lie to me，criminal minds等心理学甚至神经科学（Mr. Brain，不是特别相关）相关的美剧日剧。欣喜的是，在这过程中，我发现了与今天的主题相关的书，之前也有写过相关的文章（艾克曼与lietome，非言语行为与看穿，criminal minds的犯罪心理画像）了，今天在这里汇集到一起做一些分析。

对于日常应用来说，这三者基本可以涵盖行为科学分析的大部分了。

首先扯一点普通心理学，情绪的外在表现分为言语、非言语行为（面部表情、语言音调和各种肢体动作）。

艾克曼的与面部表情、言语、语言音调有关系，与之相关的书包括《情绪的解析》，《说谎》。

而乔·纳瓦罗（前FBI特工）与马文·卡林斯（心理学家）的《牌桌阅人术》（中文版）涵盖了大部分非言语行为，之前介绍的也是纳瓦罗的书，但不是这本，似更加详细并且严谨。

犯罪心理画像就不用说了吧，不过这个只是针对犯罪者，所以用在普通人身上不靠谱。这里有犯罪心理画像的豆列，感谢那些criminal minds粉丝辛苦收集。

最后再闲扯一点，想要了解更多日常生活中的心理学，固然《心理学与生活》是一条路。但是这条路是给心理学入门学生的，对于非专业人士而言，也可以通过《怪诞心理学》(豆瓣上这本书最近很热门，本博客也曾介绍过quirkology)来了解心理学，至少会教那些单身男性怎么写报纸征婚广告。

综上所述，心理学与脑科学那么有趣，为什么还要在这门学科外驻足？

另，不久我会推出神经教育学与韦钰院士的专帖。最近发现该院士还领导着国家级的教育科研与改革项目，需要好好研究一番。

终于更新了

快半个月了吧，上一个帖子，对不住大家。。。。现在我不像以前每天能看1000+的rss更新了，所以只能放一些不是很深入的内容了。

另外，co.cc免费域名被GFW了，各位国内的朋友要访问要翻墙，所以请多去论坛。等我毕业后，会购买一个info或者com域名，那个时候会好一点。

最近的新体验不是很多，大致说来有三方面。

1.open MRI
MRI技术有时候真的能让人打开眼界，这次的更新有2个和MRI有关。最近看日剧Mr.Brain，了解到里面的MRI机器的正式名称是open MRI。据dixin的博客留言所说，open MRI使用了永磁体而非超导体，就技术实现来说，永磁体肯定是没有超导体强的，所以估计3T（只有3T才能做功能MRI）是别想了。但也正是因为永磁体的关系，open MRI能做成开放式而不是超导MRI的圆筒封闭式。估计GE之类的公司不生产open MRI。我以为这种设计是解决幽闭症患者的恐惧问题。真得很期待MRI技术的新发展，特别是portable MRI。

2.白质fMRI成像
最近因为搞裂脑人论文，观察到fMRI的技术有新的趋势，可以做白质的功能成像，这个完美了，呵呵。
原来MRI技术主要是做结构MRI（成像大脑的灰质，不知道是否有白质，但考虑到DTI，估计没有白质），后来又有了fMRI，做灰质的功能成像。与fMRI一起发展起来的技术是DTI，专门用来成像神经纤维（白质），现在终于有了白质的fMRI成像（在发展中）。这一条技术路线给人的感觉很顺畅，说不定最后MRI机器连TMS脑刺激都能做了。

抱歉：Gazzaniga的文章错了，做白质fMRI的文章应该是：
Fabri, M., G. Polonara, et al. (2001). "Posterior corpus callosum and interhemispheric transfer of somatosensory information: An fMRI and neuropsychological study of a partially callosotomized patient." Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 13(8): 1071-1079.

3.合成生物学与生物砖(bio-brick）
合成生物学是工程学发明的名词，说白了就是利用可控的分子过程体外重建一个细胞、一个组织、甚至是一个生命。这些东西在自然界不一定有，也可以是全新的形式。而生物砖就是指这些可控的分子过程，就像砖块，一块块砌在一起，整体的生命就出现了。知道这些还要拜我校脑所的同学们，他们一位师兄的演讲，让我了解了生物砖的概念。如果从认知神经科学的角度出发，生物砖概念和Fodor的认知模块说很相近。

这里我提出一个自己的想法：虽然生物砖的说法很好理解，但根据他们的实际演示，我觉得这不是一块砖，可能是功能上相对独立的一个分子作用网络（或者分子回路，类似于电路里的某种简单回路），说砖不是很贴切。。。

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好了，同学们。BTW，我在顺便啰嗦下这个博客的规划。虽然这个博客目前流量还不是很高，但我想把它一直做下去，可能也作为我的创业计划的一部分。定位还是以与脑科学相关的新技术（并且要有产业化前景）为主，脑科学（NBIC）新的理论/科研进展、科研经验等作为辅助内容。最终的希望是以杂志的形式线下出版，当然，里面的内容肯定没有线上那么三言两语那么简单了。希望大家持续关注，谢谢：）