As humans, we are innately interested in how our bodies and minds work. One question that has been difficult to answer is exactly what is the speed of thought? Why is it so difficult to quantify the speed of thought and do you think we will ever get to the point of solving this problem?

How is the brain an example of an emergent property? Can technology sometimes lead us in the wrong direction? Examples? Does technology cause us to make incorrect conclusions or vast generalizations (other examples)?

A researcher has designed a card choice task to better understand altered decision making in a group of patients who have sustained damage to their ventromedial prefrontal cortex (compared to a non-damaged control group). Participants complete 120 trials. On each trial they choose to flip over a card from one of two decks of face down cards labeled deck 1 and deck 2. Each card flipped over wins or loses an amount of money. In deck 1 (the “bad deck”), 9 out of 10 cards wins $100 but one out of ten cards loses $1250. In deck 2 (the “good deck”), 9 out of 10 cards wins $50 and one out of ten loses $250. The researcher measures the number of choices from the “good deck” versus the “bad deck”, and measures anticipatory skin conductance responses immediately before participants choose from the “good deck” compared to the “bad deck”. The research finds that after experiencing wins and losses from 60 choice trials, control group participants on average begin to choose the “good deck” more…

In the discussion section the authors wrote “The prevailing hypothesis about the action of tACS is the alternating fields can increase or decrease the power of oscillatory rhythms in the brain, and in a frequency-dependent manner, through synchronizing and desynchronizing neuronal networks [17].”  a. Is the hypothesis a null hypothesis or an alternative/alternative hypothesis?   b. By what word or words do you know that your answer to the question is correct?  c. Why did you choose this word or words as an answer to the question?

Only about a tenth of the cells in your brain are neurons.Does this mean that you use only 10 percent of your brain when you think?What else might this fact mean?