Three Brain Pathways to Reading

The frontal reading system has been implicated in phonological processing and semantic processing (word analysis). This is also where Broca’s area is found. Broca’s area is involved in language processing, speech production, and comprehension. Neuron activation is increased in this area when words are spoken (Devlin, Matthews, & Rushworth, 2003). The ventral posterior processing system (located in the occipital and temporal lobes) is most associated with orthographic processing (visu...

 Habituation and Novelty

Beginning in infancy and throughout the life span, humans are motivated by newness, change, and excitement. Habituation, the tendency to lose interest in a repeated event and gain interest in a new one, is one of the most fundamental human reflexes. If the thermostat were to suddenly turn the air conditioning on, you would hear the loud humming sound begin, but within minutes you couldn’t even hear it if you tried. Habituation, a fundamental property of the nervous system, provides mechanis...

 The Bird Clouds

We supposed at first that the mental unity of these little avians was telepathic, but in fact it was not. It was based on the unity of a complex electromagnetic field, in fact on "radio" waves permeating the whole group. Radio, transmitted and received by every individual organism, corresponded to the chemical nerve current which maintains the unity of the human nervous system. Each brain reverberated with the ethereal rhythms of its environment; and each contributed its own peculiar theme to...

 Vernadsky vs Chardin on the Biosphere-Noosphere

Although the ages of Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955) and Vernadsky (1863-1945) differed, they were at the comparable level of scientific maturity concerning the growth of their biosphere — noosphere theories. Vernadsky first presented his views on the biosphere systematically when he published The Biosphere 2in 1926, although he began using the term biosphere much earlier (1911). In his Essays on Geochemistry ³, lectures written in Petrograd (St. Petersburg) in 1921, Vernadsky used both ...