I always just consider my "subconscious" to be that which is handling and analyzing everything that I'm not consciously thinking about. I don't think it's much of a cognitive process, but mainly abstract pattern recognition. If an interesting pattern is discovered, you'll "notice" it.
To me, if the brain is really a large parallel machine, there's no reason why seperate threads of computation can't be going on in seperate parts of the brain - each taking up a small physical region of resources.
I agree, but I wouldn't consider these "threads" to be cognitive in nature. A person's immediate attention is always focused only on one item at a time. Try examining one object while describing another. Your mind has to switch back and forth to be able to do both "simultaneously."
Right -- but that's just pattern recognition (something that is done in parallel), and not a cognitive analysis. You eventually just "know" that that pattern of 6 dots is, well, 6 dots.
I thought the "7 things" theory was dealing more with the number of *tasks* or items in your short-term memory.
I don't believe it's possible to, in a parallel fashion, divide your attention between more than one thing. It may *seem* like it (driving and shaving, for example), but you're just switching back and forth between each task and probably don't notice it.
Perhaps our definitions of "cognitive thread of thought" differ, but the only way I can imagine a person being able to truly think about each of the things you mention above at the same moment (in a parallel fashion, and not just "task-switching") is if their brain were somehow divided into four independent chunks, and even then, each chunk probably wouldn't know about the other 3 trains of thought. I think we're just defining "cognitive thread" differently.
The N2PC identifies the location of brain waves as emerging from either the right or left side of the brain. By arranging the experimental situation, Luck was able to use N2PC to identify whether a person was processing visual signals one at a time or simultaneously.
It seems that by placing the blocks on opposite sides of the board (left and right), looking at the left block would elicit a higher amount of activity in the right side of the brain while examining the right block would fire up the left side. I believe these differences were what they were looking for. If the subject were able to examine both blocks in parallel, the two halves of the brain would work simultaneously. The experiment showed a 1/10th second or so difference that was always right -> left, indicating that they focused their attention on the left block followed by the right.
The article didn't really explain this, though, so this is just my educated guess.
It's not necessarily cognitive, though. People learn the sound their name makes very well. People in the middle of a conversation just as easily get distracted when they hear a fire alarm in the distance, or a glass breaking. These sounds don't need to be loud; they're just automatically recognized.
The instant they hear that audio cue, however, their cognitive attention is turned *away* from the active conversation in order to concentrate on the source of the new sound.
As far as point 3, here's the relevant portion of the article:
This experiment identified a pattern in brain waves known as N2PC, which stands for the second negative peak (N2) of the posterior contralateral (PC). The N2PC identifies the location of brain waves as emerging from either the right or left side of the brain.
The remaining items aren't delved into in the least, but it would certainly be nice if they were true.
Agreed. If they simply had an array of black blocks with one white block and said, "Find the white block," or, say, "Does this array of blocks contain two green ones," you'd be able to do that *instantly*, because, as I understand it, you would be able to find the patterns in the scene and discover the anomalies (the white block, for example) in much more of a parallel fashion, which allows you to do it nearly instantaneously, whereas examining a green and a red block for a small "nick" (which would require a detailed examination, thus movement of the eyeball itself), requires much more detail.
Right, but it's entirely possible that this massive parallelization is able to pull out some abstract shapes, hues and the like and pass it up to be handled by higher areas of the brain, which examine the discrete "object" in a serial fashion.
Again, these are all issues that are handled by other areas of the brain, *in parallel*. The article only really discussed the COGNITIVE PROCESSING of the imagery. Tracking of the eyeball is something handled by multiple areas of the brain.
While I think we're pretty much certain the low-level aspects of the brain are handled entirely in parallel, it's certainly possible (and even likely) that most all cognitive tasks (requiring our attentive thought) be done in a serial fashion.
I wonder what it would feel like to have two cognitive threads running at once inside your brain... Two lines of thought... weird.
now my question is, might this not have to do with the human's eyes and focusing on one object at a time and switching between multiple images quickly to try to bring them into focus as simultaneously and seamlessly as possible?
Bingo. The eye isn't capable of really examining something unless it's in the direct center of your field of view, which makes it only logical that a detailed glance be performed in a serial fashion. In this way I think the experiment was biased towards a serial method of examining the blocks. I bet when they first saw the blocks, though, they were able to find the red and the green block almost instantly, likely in more of a parallel fashion (since their eyes really didn't need to move).
Though on the flip side of the coin, without using anything but your peripheral vision, try to count the number (or even color) of major items on the desk in front of you. You still end up doing it serially, concentrating on each item individually (though, it seems to me, a lot faster than moving your eyes around and focusing on each item).
The experiment wasn't trying to determine whether the brain can think or task in parallel, but how we analyze the data we see.
The way I see it, that analysis is being performed in a massively parallel fashion (like everything else in the brain), but is only being focused on one particular item or object in our field of view at a time, which makes it parallel up close, but still basically serial.
The raw image data is of course handled in an extremely parallel fashion, but the cognitive process involved, identifying patterns and discriminating between one object and another, is serial.
This really shouldn't be that big of a surprise. Try watching two or more moving objects simultaneously, and pay attention to how you do it. Your attention ends up being focused on one item at a time, albeit relatively quickly (depending on how fast you think and how much caffeine you've had).
Though I basically agree with their findings, I'm not too thrilled about how this experiment was set up. They basically *forced* the participants to think serially by placing both of the suspect blocks on opposite ends of the board (yes, I know that's really the only way they could reliably determine which item was being focused on and when). The eye ball itself isn't capable of doing a detailed analysis of imagery except in the very small area in the direct center of its field of view. It's only logical for the participant to immediately identify the different colors peripherally (and perhaps even in parallel -- the experiment never delved into this part) and then concentrate a detailed glance first on one block, then on the other. Biologically, it had to happen that way. Their eyes couldn't have efficiently made the same analysis in a parallel fashion.
Just out of curiosity, since the bulk of the disc itself just seems to be transparent plastic, is there a common method for re-surfacing the bottom of the disc? If a bunch of surface scratches don't actually damage the media, one should be able to "sand" and buff the bottom side of the disc and be able to read their data again, yes? Is there a published method or product for doing this?
Careful -- most CD-RW discs have a very finite (and frequently lower than you'd expect) number of writes that can be performed in a given area. If you're constantly re-arranging and saving data to your CD-RW's in this manner, it will wear it out rather quickly.
I'm afraid I don't have a number, but I remember something in the neighborhood of 1000 writes? Maybe somebody else can comment.
AFAIK, a lot (most? more?) of ATM's you use are self-contained PC's in their own right. I think I've even seen a picture someplace of a Windows blue-screen on one...
The comment was probably moderated multiple times, and you're being asked to more than one moderation on that comment.
Remember, you're not moderating the *comment* itself, but the moderation that was done to that comment. Try to ignore the comment's score and just answer the question. Was the rating of "insightful" (or whatever) justified?
Disregard the comment's score and it's current "tag" (perhaps this should be removed from the page entirely). All you're being asked to evaluate is that one specific moderation.
The point is to say, "Yes, that moderator made a good judgement call by saying this comment was 'Insightful,'" not, "Yes, this comment deserves the score it was given."
It may seem like a small distinction to make, but if you base your meta-moderation on the comment and its score, and not the action of the moderator you're meta-moderating, your vote could affect the moderator's karma when all you want to do is affect the comment itself.
Pretty sweet concept. I always tried to keep up with stuff like this, and I'm surprised I haven't heard anything about it until now. Hopefully we'll start seeing technology used in more places here.
I also knew that many third parties were making software that runs better or only on RedHat linux.
Whoa right there. Would you mind backing this up? Red Hat Linux is still Linux. How is it even possible to write a program that runs "better" on one distribution over another, aside from perhaps taking better advantage over a version of library that might ship with one distribution and not another.
I suppose you could write your program to look for key "Red Hat" signature files, and if those don't exist, program in a few delays or randomly crash, but do you really think someone would do this?
This comment is a reply to your comment, thus it becomes a "comment reply". Therefore, you are now "reading a comment reply.":)
I TOTALLY agree about the whole Metric thing. I thought the US congress passed a law a while back mandating that all street signs, etc. include metric measurments ("kph") in addition to the US ("mph") in an effort to acclimate our citizens to metric. This hasn't happened. I dunno, maybe the law never passed. I wish it had.
It really sucks. We all learn in high school and college what metric is, how far a kilometer is, what constitutes "cold" in degrees Celsius, yet the day we graduate to the real world, 95% of us never use these units again. We forget them, and continue to embrace and teach our children the US units of measure.
It sucks! Most of my friends think I'm strange, but I've really tried my damndest to convert everyone.:) If people would realize that it takes about an hour to drive 100km and that their ETA calculations would be SO MUCH easier if they switched, maybe they would... Heh.
The problem is that the people making the laws are the very same people that would have the hardest time adapting to a new system of measurment, though if they would just pass a law that started a slow transition, I'm confident it would work. Say, five years to convert all government entities to 100% metric, perhaps another five years before laws and building codes and the like were required to adapt.
You know, I've always wondered.. Even though a 2x4 isn't 2 inches by 4 inches anymore, what in the world do Metric folk call their 2x4's?
I basically thought the whole meta-moderation thing was a bit of overkill. Really, the moderators *should* be watching out for improperly moderated comments. Sure, it sucks to have to 'waste' a moderation point fixing somebody else's unfair moderation, but that's what moderators are here for.
Meta-moderation just seems like an extra level of needless complexity. Perhaps we simply need more moderators to help keep things in check. Perhaps we just need to stress the fact that moderators are supposed to be watching out for badly moderated comments in addition to new comments that are over/underrated. (This includes the necessity that a moderator be reading *all* comments, not just those scored at 0 or 1 or better.)
Slashdot Mirror
Perhaps both..
I always just consider my "subconscious" to be that which is handling and analyzing everything that I'm not consciously thinking about. I don't think it's much of a cognitive process, but mainly abstract pattern recognition. If an interesting pattern is discovered, you'll "notice" it.
To me, if the brain is really a large parallel machine, there's no reason why seperate threads of computation can't be going on in seperate parts of the brain - each taking up a small physical region of resources.
I agree, but I wouldn't consider these "threads" to be cognitive in nature. A person's immediate attention is always focused only on one item at a time. Try examining one object while describing another. Your mind has to switch back and forth to be able to do both "simultaneously."
Right -- but that's just pattern recognition (something that is done in parallel), and not a cognitive analysis. You eventually just "know" that that pattern of 6 dots is, well, 6 dots.
I thought the "7 things" theory was dealing more with the number of *tasks* or items in your short-term memory.
I don't believe it's possible to, in a parallel fashion, divide your attention between more than one thing. It may *seem* like it (driving and shaving, for example), but you're just switching back and forth between each task and probably don't notice it.
Perhaps our definitions of "cognitive thread of thought" differ, but the only way I can imagine a person being able to truly think about each of the things you mention above at the same moment (in a parallel fashion, and not just "task-switching") is if their brain were somehow divided into four independent chunks, and even then, each chunk probably wouldn't know about the other 3 trains of thought. I think we're just defining "cognitive thread" differently.
It seems that by placing the blocks on opposite sides of the board (left and right), looking at the left block would elicit a higher amount of activity in the right side of the brain while examining the right block would fire up the left side. I believe these differences were what they were looking for. If the subject were able to examine both blocks in parallel, the two halves of the brain would work simultaneously. The experiment showed a 1/10th second or so difference that was always right -> left, indicating that they focused their attention on the left block followed by the right.
The article didn't really explain this, though, so this is just my educated guess.
It's not necessarily cognitive, though. People learn the sound their name makes very well. People in the middle of a conversation just as easily get distracted when they hear a fire alarm in the distance, or a glass breaking. These sounds don't need to be loud; they're just automatically recognized.
The instant they hear that audio cue, however, their cognitive attention is turned *away* from the active conversation in order to concentrate on the source of the new sound.
As far as point 3, here's the relevant portion of the article:
The remaining items aren't delved into in the least, but it would certainly be nice if they were true.
Agreed. If they simply had an array of black blocks with one white block and said, "Find the white block," or, say, "Does this array of blocks contain two green ones," you'd be able to do that *instantly*, because, as I understand it, you would be able to find the patterns in the scene and discover the anomalies (the white block, for example) in much more of a parallel fashion, which allows you to do it nearly instantaneously, whereas examining a green and a red block for a small "nick" (which would require a detailed examination, thus movement of the eyeball itself), requires much more detail.
Right, but it's entirely possible that this massive parallelization is able to pull out some abstract shapes, hues and the like and pass it up to be handled by higher areas of the brain, which examine the discrete "object" in a serial fashion.
Again, these are all issues that are handled by other areas of the brain, *in parallel*. The article only really discussed the COGNITIVE PROCESSING of the imagery. Tracking of the eyeball is something handled by multiple areas of the brain.
While I think we're pretty much certain the low-level aspects of the brain are handled entirely in parallel, it's certainly possible (and even likely) that most all cognitive tasks (requiring our attentive thought) be done in a serial fashion.
I wonder what it would feel like to have two cognitive threads running at once inside your brain... Two lines of thought... weird.
now my question is, might this not have to do with the human's eyes and focusing on one object at a time and switching between multiple images quickly to try to bring them into focus as simultaneously and seamlessly as possible?
Bingo. The eye isn't capable of really examining something unless it's in the direct center of your field of view, which makes it only logical that a detailed glance be performed in a serial fashion. In this way I think the experiment was biased towards a serial method of examining the blocks. I bet when they first saw the blocks, though, they were able to find the red and the green block almost instantly, likely in more of a parallel fashion (since their eyes really didn't need to move).
Though on the flip side of the coin, without using anything but your peripheral vision, try to count the number (or even color) of major items on the desk in front of you. You still end up doing it serially, concentrating on each item individually (though, it seems to me, a lot faster than moving your eyes around and focusing on each item).
The experiment wasn't trying to determine whether the brain can think or task in parallel, but how we analyze the data we see.
The way I see it, that analysis is being performed in a massively parallel fashion (like everything else in the brain), but is only being focused on one particular item or object in our field of view at a time, which makes it parallel up close, but still basically serial.
The raw image data is of course handled in an extremely parallel fashion, but the cognitive process involved, identifying patterns and discriminating between one object and another, is serial.
This really shouldn't be that big of a surprise. Try watching two or more moving objects simultaneously, and pay attention to how you do it. Your attention ends up being focused on one item at a time, albeit relatively quickly (depending on how fast you think and how much caffeine you've had).
Though I basically agree with their findings, I'm not too thrilled about how this experiment was set up. They basically *forced* the participants to think serially by placing both of the suspect blocks on opposite ends of the board (yes, I know that's really the only way they could reliably determine which item was being focused on and when). The eye ball itself isn't capable of doing a detailed analysis of imagery except in the very small area in the direct center of its field of view. It's only logical for the participant to immediately identify the different colors peripherally (and perhaps even in parallel -- the experiment never delved into this part) and then concentrate a detailed glance first on one block, then on the other. Biologically, it had to happen that way. Their eyes couldn't have efficiently made the same analysis in a parallel fashion.
Just out of curiosity, since the bulk of the disc itself just seems to be transparent plastic, is there a common method for re-surfacing the bottom of the disc? If a bunch of surface scratches don't actually damage the media, one should be able to "sand" and buff the bottom side of the disc and be able to read their data again, yes? Is there a published method or product for doing this?
Careful -- most CD-RW discs have a very finite (and frequently lower than you'd expect) number of writes that can be performed in a given area. If you're constantly re-arranging and saving data to your CD-RW's in this manner, it will wear it out rather quickly.
I'm afraid I don't have a number, but I remember something in the neighborhood of 1000 writes? Maybe somebody else can comment.
AFAIK, a lot (most? more?) of ATM's you use are self-contained PC's in their own right. I think I've even seen a picture someplace of a Windows blue-screen on one...
Umm, these programs and widget sets work just fine under other flavors of Unix (including all distributions of Linux).
Just because it SHIPS with RedHat (or says, "...for RedHat Linux!") doesn't mean it will run only under RedHat.
The comment was probably moderated multiple times, and you're being asked to more than one moderation on that comment.
Remember, you're not moderating the *comment* itself, but the moderation that was done to that comment. Try to ignore the comment's score and just answer the question. Was the rating of "insightful" (or whatever) justified?
Disregard the comment's score and it's current "tag" (perhaps this should be removed from the page entirely). All you're being asked to evaluate is that one specific moderation.
The point is to say, "Yes, that moderator made a good judgement call by saying this comment was 'Insightful,'" not, "Yes, this comment deserves the score it was given."
It may seem like a small distinction to make, but if you base your meta-moderation on the comment and its score, and not the action of the moderator you're meta-moderating, your vote could affect the moderator's karma when all you want to do is affect the comment itself.
Pretty sweet concept. I always tried to keep up with stuff like this, and I'm surprised I haven't heard anything about it until now. Hopefully we'll start seeing technology used in more places here.
I also knew that many third parties were making software that runs better or only on RedHat linux.
Whoa right there. Would you mind backing this up? Red Hat Linux is still Linux. How is it even possible to write a program that runs "better" on one distribution over another, aside from perhaps taking better advantage over a version of library that might ship with one distribution and not another.
I suppose you could write your program to look for key "Red Hat" signature files, and if those don't exist, program in a few delays or randomly crash, but do you really think someone would do this?
Please elaborate.
This comment is a reply to your comment, thus it becomes a "comment reply". Therefore, you are now "reading a comment reply." :)
:) If people would realize that it takes about an hour to drive 100km and that their ETA calculations would be SO MUCH easier if they switched, maybe they would... Heh.
I TOTALLY agree about the whole Metric thing. I thought the US congress passed a law a while back mandating that all street signs, etc. include metric measurments ("kph") in addition to the US ("mph") in an effort to acclimate our citizens to metric. This hasn't happened. I dunno, maybe the law never passed. I wish it had.
It really sucks. We all learn in high school and college what metric is, how far a kilometer is, what constitutes "cold" in degrees Celsius, yet the day we graduate to the real world, 95% of us never use these units again. We forget them, and continue to embrace and teach our children the US units of measure.
It sucks! Most of my friends think I'm strange, but I've really tried my damndest to convert everyone.
The problem is that the people making the laws are the very same people that would have the hardest time adapting to a new system of measurment, though if they would just pass a law that started a slow transition, I'm confident it would work. Say, five years to convert all government entities to 100% metric, perhaps another five years before laws and building codes and the like were required to adapt.
You know, I've always wondered.. Even though a 2x4 isn't 2 inches by 4 inches anymore, what in the world do Metric folk call their 2x4's?
I basically thought the whole meta-moderation thing was a bit of overkill. Really, the moderators *should* be watching out for improperly moderated comments. Sure, it sucks to have to 'waste' a moderation point fixing somebody else's unfair moderation, but that's what moderators are here for.
Meta-moderation just seems like an extra level of needless complexity. Perhaps we simply need more moderators to help keep things in check. Perhaps we just need to stress the fact that moderators are supposed to be watching out for badly moderated comments in addition to new comments that are over/underrated. (This includes the necessity that a moderator be reading *all* comments, not just those scored at 0 or 1 or better.)
I mentioned in an earlier thread that it would be nice to have a means for determining the validity/authenticity of a particular article.
Perhaps a scale that included items like "validated first-hand", "validated by web presence", "unsubstantiated rumor", etc.
If nothing else, a "rumor" flag would be pretty nifty.