Two from CogNews: Storing New Information, and Artificial Intelligence

Via CogNews:

"Conscious and unconscious memory linked in storing new information"

The way the brain stores new, conscious information such as a first kiss or a childhood home is strongly linked to the way the human brain stores unconscious information, researchers at Yale report this month in an article featured on the cover of "Neuron". This finding by Marvin Chun, professor in the Department of Psychology, and his team contrasts with the belief that all explicit (conscious) memory, and implicit (unconscious) memory, has distinct neural bases. The belief that the two types of memory are distinct has been illustrated by examples, including amnesiac patients with damage to the hippocampus and associated brain structures who have severely impaired explicit memory but intact implicit memory. [Read more.]

"Virtual Sea Slugs and Beyond"

ZDNet recently ran a three part series covering the past, present and future of Artificial Intelligence. It serves as a good primer for other disciplines in cognitive science, covering Asimov and Alice through Neural Networks and Dancing Hondas. And for the rest of you there are little morsels of entertainment such as virtual sea slugs. [Read more.]