Mind Hacks

To get where it is, the human brain has made some fascinating design decisions over time. The tricks the brain uses to accomplish all that's required of it leave traces-there are holes in our visual field that we continually cover up, certain sensory inputs that grab our attention faster and more thoroughly than we'd expect. It's not necessary to know the brain inside-out to find out about these tricks. We can expose the traces by making focused probes into cognitive neuroscience, illustrating one-by-one the unexpected features that throw light on how the human brain works. Mind Hacks offers 100 experiments, tips and tricks related to vision, motor skills, attention, cognition, subliminal perception and more!

Tom Stafford has a PhD in Cognitive Neuroscience and is currently a research associate in the Department of Psychology, University of Sheffield. He is also an associate editor of the Psychologist magazine and has previously worked as a freelance writer and researcher for the BBC.

Matt Webb's background is in new media. His freelance activities include an IM interface to Google, which predated the Google API and is included in O Reilly s Google Hacks. He launched a project to find the Web's favorite color that was featured on BBC News Online and national newspapers in the UK. His current job in R&D at the BBC involves these kinds of projects internally, and gives him experience at addressing abstract social and technological ideas to mixed audiences. He was a popular speaker at O Reilly's Emerging Technology Conference in 2004.

Foreword

xi

Credits

xiii

Preface

xix

Chapter 1. Inside the Brain

1

(31)

1. Find Out How the Brain Works Without Looking Inside

2

(3)

2. Electroencephalogram: Getting the Big Picture with EEGs

5

(1)

3. Positron Emission Tomography: Measuring Activity Indirectly with PET

6

(1)

4. Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging: The State of the Art

7

(1)

5. Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation: Turn On and Off Bits of the Brain

8

(1)

6. Neuropsychology, the 10% Myth, and Why You Use All of Your Brain

9

(4)

7. Get Acquainted with the Central Nervous System

13

(3)

8. Tour the Cortex and the Four Lobes

16

(3)

9. The Neuron

19

(3)

10. Detect the Effect of Cognitive Function on Cerebral Blood Flow

22

(2)

11. Why People Don't Work Like Elevator Buttons

24

(3)

12. Build Your Own Sensory Homunculus

27

(5)

Chapter 2. Seeing

32

(79)

13. Understand Visual Processing

32

(6)

14. See the Limits of Your Vision

38

(4)

15. To See, Act

42

(4)

16. Map Your Blind Spot

46

(4)

17. Glimpse the Gaps in Your Vision

50

(2)

18. When Time Stands Still

52

(3)

19. Release Eye Fixations for Faster Reactions

55

(2)

20. Fool Yourself into Seeing 3D

57

(5)

21. Objects Move, Lighting Shouldn't

62

(4)

22. Depth Matters

66

(6)

23. See How Brightness Differs from Luminance: The Checker Shadow Illusion

72

(4)

24. Create Illusionary Depth with Sunglasses

76

(4)

25. See Movement When All Is Still

80

(3)

26. Get Adjusted

83

(3)

27. Show Motion Without Anything Moving

86

(4)

28. Motion Extrapolation: The "Flash-Lag Effect"

90

(3)

29. Turn Gliding Blocks into Stepping Feet

93

(2)

30. Understand the Rotating Snakes Illusion

95

(6)

31. Minimize Imaginary Distances

101

(5)

32. Explore Your Defense Hardware

106

(2)

33. Neural Noise Isn't a Bug; It's a Feature

108

(3)

Chapter 3. Attention

111

(36)

34. Detail and the Limits of Attention

112

(3)

35. Count Faster with Subitizing

115

(2)

36. Feel the Presence and Loss of Attention

117

(6)

37. Grab Attention

123

(3)

38. Don't Look Back!

126

(3)

39. Avoid Holes in Attention

129

(5)

40. Blind to Change

134

(3)

41. Make Things Invisible Simply by Concentrating (on Something Else)

137

(2)

42. The Brain Punishes Features that Cry Wolf

139

(4)

43. Improve Visual Attention Through Video Games

143

(4)

Chapter 4. Hearing and Language

147

(26)

44. Detect Timing with Your Ears

148

(2)

45. Detect Sound Direction

150

(4)

46. Discover Pitch

154

(2)

47. Keep Your Balance

156

(2)

48. Detect Sounds on the Margins of Certainty

158

(2)

49. Speech Is Broadband Input to Your Head

160

(2)

50. Give Big-Sounding Words to Big Concepts

162

(3)

51. Stop Memory-Buffer Overrun While Reading

165

(4)

52. Robust Processing Using Parallelism

169

(4)

Chapter 5. Integrating

173

(27)

53. Put Timing Information into Sound and Location Information into Light

173

(3)

54. Don't Divide Attention Across Locations

176

(3)

55. Confuse Color Identification with Mixed Signals

179

(3)

56. Don't Go There

182

(4)

57. Combine Modalities to Increase Intensity

186

(2)

58. Watch Yourself to Feel More

188

(2)

59. Hear with Your Eyes: The McGurk Effect

190

(3)

60. Pay Attention to Thrown Voices

193

(2)

61. Talk to Yourself

195

(5)

Chapter 6. Moving

200

(31)

62. The Broken Escalator Phenomenon: When Autopilot Takes Over

200

(3)

63. Keep Hold of Yourself

203

(4)

64. Mold Your Body Schema

207

(3)

65. Why Can't You Tickle Yourself?

210

(5)

66. Trick Half Your Mind

215

(3)

67. Objects Ask to Be Used

218

(3)

68. Test Your Handedness

221

(5)

69. Use Your Right Brain-and Your Left, Too

226

(5)

Chapter 7. Reasoning

231

(20)

70. Use Numbers Carefully

231

(3)

71. Think About Frequencies Rather than Probabilities

234

(5)

72. Detect Cheaters

239

(3)

73. Fool Others into Feeling Better

242

(4)

74. Maintain the Status Quo

246

(5)

Chapter 8. Togetherness

251

(22)

75. Grasp the Gestalt

252

(2)

76. To Be Noticed, Synchronize in Time

254

(4)

77. See a Person in Moving Lights

258

(4)

78. Make Things Come Alive

262

(3)

79. Make Events Understandable as Cause and Effect

265

(4)

80. Act Without Knowing It

269

(4)

Chapter 9. Remembering

273

(43)

81. Bring Stuff to the Front of Your Mind

274

(3)

82. Subliminal Messages Are Weak and Simple

277

(2)

83. Fake Familiarity

279

(4)

84. Keep Your Sources Straight (if You Can)

283

(4)

85. Create False Memories

287

(5)

86. Change Context to Build Robust Memories

292

(3)

87. Boost Memory Using Context

295

(3)

88. Think Yourself Strong

298

(4)

89. Navigate Your Way Through Memory

302

(4)

90. Have an Out-of-Body Experience

306

(2)

91. Enter the Twilight Zone: The Hypnagogic State

308

(3)

92. Make the Caffeine Habit Taste Good

311

(5)

Chapter 10. Other People

316

(29)

93. Understand What Makes Faces Special

317

(3)

94. Signal Emotion

320

(5)

95. Make Yourself Happy

325

(2)

96. Reminisce Hot and Cold

327

(4)

97. Look Where I'm Looking

331

(4)

98. Monkey See, Monkey Do

335

(3)

99. Spread a Bad Mood Around

338

(4)

100. You Are What You Think

342

(3)

Index

345

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