Supplemental Materials Made Easier

I am methods-based scientist. I initially seek a thorough understanding of a study's method. From that understanding, I can put the data and narrative in a context.

Journals are increasingly putting methodical materials in separate supplemental sections, but they do not make it frictionless to assess that material. Several high quality journals do not hyperlink directly to the supplemental materials for a paper. By direct hyperlink, I mean the specific figure or table hosted on its own page (not a zip file). Direct hyperlinking is straightforward for both the html and pdf versions of a paper.

Server space is cheap; Use it to reduce friction in science.

Publication: Implicit and explicit categorization- A tale of four species

I am proud to present my latest publication - "Implicit and explicit categorization: A tale of four species"

Abstract: Categorization is essential for survival, and it is a widely studied cognitive adaptation in humans and animals. An influential neuroscience perspective differentiates in humans an explicit, rule-based categorization system from an implicit system that slowly associates response outputs to different regions of perceptual space. This perspective is being extended to study categorization in other vertebrate species, using category tasks that have a one-dimensional, rule-based solution or a two-dimensional, information-integration solution. Humans, macaques, and capuchin monkeys strongly dimensionalize perceptual stimuli and learn rule-based tasks more quickly. In sharp contrast, pigeons learn these two tasks equally quickly. Pigeons represent a cognitive system in which the commitment to dimensional analysis and category rules was not strongly made. Their results may reveal the character of the ancestral vertebrate categorization system from which that of primates emerged. The primate results establish continuity with human cognition, suggesting that nonhuman primates share aspects of humans' capacity for explicit cognition. The emergence of dimensional analysis and rule learning could have been an important step in primates' cognitive evolution.

You can read more here.

Maryland Neuroimaging Retreat November 12

I will be attending the Maryland Neuroimaging Retreat in Baltimore on November 12 (Yes, that is a couple of months in the future, but I am a planner).

If you are attending and would like to meet up for coffee to discuss research, please send me an email.

Teaching Sensation and Perception Fall 2012

I am honored to be invited by the Department of Psychology at The Catholic University of America to teach Sensation and Perception for the Fall of 2012.

Sensation and perception is one of my favorite topics, sitting at the intercetion of cognitive psychology, neurosicence, cluture, and personal experience.

One of my goals for the class is reimagining the instruction of sensation and perception. Sensation and perception is a complex, inherently dynamic topic, and its instruction should reflect those properties. I am updating the curriculum and bridging the gap between the tradiational classroom and Khan Academy-style learning to best serve my students. Those aims are reflected in my syllabus. I am excited to leverage cutting-edge online resourses, such as the video below.

Asking a Better Question in Neuroscience

The mysteries of the brain are often taken for granted. The average person (and their billions of neurons) is amazing system that adapts to a complex world in quickly and effortlessly. We are still at the first stages of understanding the neurobiology of healthy systems.

However neuroscience chooses not to expolore those everyday mysteries, instead choosing to focus on disfunctions, disorders, and diseases. Those mysteries are no less interesting but have limited application. Successful breakthroughs in the neuroscience of disfunction, disorder, and disease could directly help hundreds (perhaps thousands). Succesful breakthoughs in basic neuroscience could directly help millions (perahaps billions).

That distinction makes my research choices easier.

Idea List & Hit List

For every project I have two running lists: an idea list and a hit list. I sperate thinking (idea list) from doing (hit list).

An idea list is an inbox for a specific project. It welcomes all, without critical evaluation.

A hit list are the next actions for a specific project. I take ephemeral elements from the idea list and transform them into the physical reality of action. Since a hit list is commitments (to myself), it stays short (with lots of critical evaluation).

Externalizing my thoughts and furture actions allows them to be more easily tweaked and changed.

The concepts are most important but there are tricks & tips - these lists are text files synced via Dropbox. That means I can work anywhere and anytime, not in the frantic workaholism but in a reckless joy.

Neuroscience as Frontier

Universally, the frontier is a place for explorers, pioneers, and settlers to change and be changed.

I put my money (and time and attention) on neuroscience as a science frontier of my lifetime.

I have been changed by my explorations of the neuroscience frontier. Given the pace of change in the field, I developed the ability to modify previously held beliefs. Given the range of topics that could influence a project, I developed a basic working knowledge in many academic fields (from neuroanatomy to applied mathematics). In order to ask the questions worth answering, I took the time to develop deep expertise in a narrow specialty.

Those abilities also enrich my life outside of science.