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As great minds throughout history have aptly demonstrated, high IQ's aren't always compatible with 'normality.' Several experts, including School of Psychology Professor Eric Schumacher are quoted in an article about seven behaviors that are linked to having a higher IQ. Schumacher's study on daydreaming, completed in 2017 with Christine Godwin, is referenced. "People with efficient brains may have too much brain capacity to stop their minds from wandering," Schumacher says. "Our findings remind me of the absent-minded professor — someone who's brilliant, but off in his or her own world, sometimes oblivious to their own surroundings, or school children who are too intellectually advanced for their classes. While it may take five minutes for their friends to learn something new, they figure it out in a minute, then check out and start daydreaming," he adds.
The MirrorA team of Georgia Tech researchers from the lab of Associate Professor Dobromir Rahnev in the School of Psychology has made a groundbreaking advancement in artificial intelligence by developing a neural network that emulates human decision-making. This innovation could transform AI systems, making them more reliable and accurate. In their study, published in Nature Human Behaviour, researchers from Rahnev’s lab, introduced RTNet, a neural network designed to match human decision-making patterns.
(This research also appeared in The Debrief).
The University NetworkGeorgia Tech researchers developed a neural network, RTNet, that mimics human decision-making processes, including confidence and variability, improving its reliability and accuracy in tasks like digit recognition. Working in the lab of Associate Professor Dobromir Rahnev in the School of Psychology, researchers are training neural networks to make decisions more like humans. This science of human decision-making is only just being applied to machine learning, but developing a neural network even closer to the actual human brain may make it more reliable.
SciTechDailyA new study — led by Dolly Seeburger, a graduate student in the School of Psychology, alongside her advisor Eric Schumacher, a professor in the School of Psychology — investigates the brain’s mechanisms behind deep focus. The research employs fMRI to explore low-frequency fluctuations in brain networks during focused and less-focused states. The team discovered that certain brain networks synchronize and desynchronize, affecting an individual’s ability to maintain attention. This insight into the dynamic nature of brain activity could lead to better strategies for enhancing focus and attention in various cognitive tasks. (This story also appeared at Medical Xpress.)
Neuroscience NewsSchool of Psychology Assistant Professor Hsiao-Wen Liao and colleagues (2021) decided to investigate the adaptive functions of the “reminiscence bump”. The “bump” in this term refers to the finding that the memories older adults have of their early adult years are the clearest of all of those they have in their entire lives, including the recent past. It’s possible, they argue, that there is value in massaging those events from your early adulthood as you think about your current life. Specifically, the more you feel that the events in your “bump” were ones you could control, the more likely it is that thinking about them brings you satisfaction.
Psychology TodayResearchers in the School of Psychology co-authored a 2017 study related to daydreaming. They found that daydreamers have unique connections in their brains, linking parts that handle deep thoughts and creativity. That means your daydreaming is more than just moments lost in thought. They’re actual signs that you’re sharper and more creative than you realize, especially when it comes to solving complex puzzles and coming up with new ideas.
Hack Spirit
