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Making Sense of Sensory Information
On a continuous basis, our brain receives multiple streams of exteroceptive sensory data about the physical world and other people. At the same time it receives a steady stream of interoceptive data...
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Sensing and Perceiving the Physical World
Sensation is the information the brain receives; perception is the result of the brain selecting, organizing, and interpreting this information. We don’t experience the sensory data directly; we...
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Supersensory Perception
Our brain is constantly weighing and calculating (interpreting) multiple internal and external factors and inputs to arrive at its predictions—all within the context of what is normal for us—to...
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The Scent of Water; The Smell of Rain
Humans are not the only creatures processing numerous streams of sensory data in order to determine what’s out there in the world and what to do about it. Many of the animals and insects we share the...
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Existential Troublesome Knowledge
There’s troublesome knowledge—and then there’s existential troublesome knowledge. The concept of troublesome knowledge was developed in academia and has since been applied and utilized in many academic...
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Sudoku, Provisional Assessments, and the Space of Possibilities
I enjoy working Sudoku puzzles, especially the hard or challenger level, and I always look forward to the super challenger puzzles on the back pages of Dell’s Crazy for Sudoku books that take days to...
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The Reward System Is Functional
Yes, the reward system is functional, which means that it isn’t conceptual or fanciful—or optional. It’s integral to our survival, and it’s even older than we are: it evolved in worms and flies about a...
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Motivation: The Condensed Version
Rewards can be intrinsic or extrinsic, but there’s no such thing as extrinsic motivation. I’m more often than not the one attempting to make distinctions when it appears that others are conflating or...
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What Do You Want to Have Done?
Common perceptions or definitions of motivation vary somewhat, but most are based on the work of Richard Ryan and Edward Deci, the developers of Self-Determination Theory. Self-Determination Theory...
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False Beliefs about Motivation
Most theories and beliefs about motivation are quite far removed from the neurochemical reality. But theories that ignore the neurochemical basis of motivation are not only not useful, they can also be...
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