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neuroscience entered the public consciousness, and has changed the way we talk to ourselves. But much of what passes for knowledge is inaccurate

I never used to treat neuroscience on the bus, but it has happened twice in the last month. Once a travel companion said his "brain was not working properly," explaining that he had gone through a long period of depression. In another, an exchange student enthusiastically told me that one the benefits of foreign language learning is a new "made his brain more efficient." In each case, the conversation was peppered with references to the brain that naturally family members mentioned "I do not think my brain can not handle multitasking "glide among us as easily as" my cousin studied in Paris. " A gray day in London, the rain on the windows, talking to strangers neuroscience.

scientific concepts have always washed in and out of popular consciousness, but more than ever, the brain has become part of contemporary culture. With the recent announcement of two scientific projects of dollars, the Human Brain Project in Europe and the map of brain activity in the United States, it would be difficult to ignore the impact on public spending. Meanwhile, the Barbican has started a festival of unprecedented months of neuroscience called Wonder, even suggesting the world of art has always been science-shy raised an eyebrow. But pure penetration of neuroscience in everyday life that makes it remarkable. We talk about the thinking of the left brain and right disorders brainstorming and brain. The differences between male and female brains are subject to periodic press speculation and newspapers publish articles in neuroimaging that seek to explain everything from love to the memory. Young people are increasingly aware that all of video games with sexual activity could "damage the brain," while the elderly are encouraged to "train your brain" so that it retains its function later in life . unpleasant experiences of dissatisfaction with the trauma of mental illness has been reformulated as neurological problems, mainly as art and music are evaluated by their neurochemical effect.

brain science is permanently set as a response to the deepest problems of life. Reveals "the deepest mysteries of what makes us what we are," says Elaine Fox in the introduction to his book

brain rainy Brain Sunny

, could be the introduction of a number of books that now fill neuroscience pop our shelves.

know Brain

Buddha brain

Tell-Tale Brain

The brain is modified

-. You can store a library with the new generation of books that encourage us to see life from a neurological point of view

This brain about every day took an interesting place in our culture. Academic discourse of "folk psychology", which is the set of concepts that we use in everyday life to explain our behavior and mental states to others. Fundamentally different from scientific psychology professionals and systematized. When we hear the common explanations like "it needs a good cry" or "men are only interested in sex," which is popular psychology in action. It is a mixture of consensus, the experience and prejudices that we can give reasons why people do what they do.

One of the difficulties encountered by scientific psychology is that it gives reasons for behavior that are often in conflict with popular psychology. Most people assume that the experience of his own mind and actions of others makes them experts sufficient to exclude any other explanation, even scientifically validated.

For example, a lot of research in psychology has shown that we tend not to have a good idea of ??why we make certain decisions. In one of many studies in the field, Lars Hall and his colleagues gave people a survey about their moral beliefs, but used a snap to change the decisions actually. When asked to justify the belief that he had not approved, more than two thirds of people do not notice the change and happily gave reasons supporting the opposite of its original position. Popular psychology tells us that can accurately explain our actions and, therefore, many people think that these effects has never validated psychological well apply to them or simply do not exist. Suggest that someone did not fully know their own actions and their justifications post-event can be improvised simply will not wash in the conversation.

Popular interest in how the brain have more "people neuroscience", which is strongly linked to personal identity and subjective experience. As popular psychology is not necessarily very accurate and sometimes inaccurate, but we can use neuroscience in everyday language so that previously was not credible to non-specialists.

is important to note that part of the persuasiveness of scientific progress is authentic. The revolution has given us understanding neurochemistry important medical treatments for mental illness and neurological disorders, while the study of patients with brain damage have shown that individual brain circuits that make special contributions to our emotions and behavior. The development of brain scanning technology in the 80s and 90s has allowed scientists to see, at least vaguely, brain activity in healthy subjects during the tasks recognizable.

However, these gains were unevenly integrated into the public debate. Bright colorful brain scans are a favorite medium since both are visually appealing and easy to understand, but apparently, in reality, they are part of complex scientific information available to us. They are not the activity cards, but cards of the results of statistical comparisons complex circulation unevenly relate to actual brain function. This is a problem that scientists are painfully aware that is often overlooked when the results come in the press.
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