OpenAI takes the robotic imitation of human behavior into a whole new level

OpenAI, anElon Musk-backed nonprofit artificial intelligence platform just announced a new milestone in training robots. They are working with a new algorithm known as one-shot imitation learning, which lets human being train a robot by demonstrating it first in virtual reality.

In the video below, a person is trying to teach a robotic arm how to stack a series of colored cube-shaped blocks by first performing it manually within a VR environment. The whole system is powered by two neural networks. The first one determines the objects spatial position to the robot by taking a camera image. However, the neural network was trained only with a host of simulated images, which means it knew how to cooperate with the real world before it ever actually met it. The second one emulates any task the demonstrator shows it by scanning through recorded actions and observing frames telling it what to do next.

Our robot has now learned to perform the task even though its movements have to be different than the ones in the demonstration, explains Josh Tobin, a member of OpenAIs technical staff. With a single demonstration of a task, we can replicate it in a number of different initial conditions. Teaching the robot how to build a different block arrangement requires only a single additional demonstration.

The model is currently a prototype, but this concept could help researchers in the long run. They could use this concept to teach the robots more complex tasks in future without using any physical elements at all. OpenAIs long term plan is to give the AI the ability to learn to adapt to unpredictable changes in the environment.

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OpenAI takes the robotic imitation of human behavior into a whole new level - The TechNews

Robots that occasionally act randomly can help groups of humans solve collective-action problems faster, new research has shown.

Playing a game with someone unpredictable can be annoying, particularly when you're on the same team. But in an online game designed to test group decision-making, adding computer-controlled players that sometimes behave randomly more than halved the time it took to solve the problem, according to the new study.

That shouldn't come as too much of a surprise, said study leader Nicholas Christakis, director of the Human Nature Lab at Yale University. Random mutations make evolution possible; random movements by animals in flocks and schools enhances group survival; and computer scientists often introduce noise a statistical term for random or meaningless information to improve search algorithms, he said. [Super-Intelligent Machines: 7 Robotic Futures]

But the discovery that these effects are mirrored in combined groups of humans and machines could have wide-ranging implications, Christakis told Live Science. To start, self-driving cars will soon share roads with human drivers, and more people may soon find themselves working alongside robots or with "smart" software.

In the study, published online today (May 17) in the journal Nature, the researchers describe how they recruited 4,000 human workers from Amazon's Mechanical Turk online crowdsourcing platform to play an online game.

Each participant was assigned at random to one of 20 locations, or "nodes," in an interconnected network. Players can select from three colors and the goal is for every node to have a different color from the neighbors they are connected to.

Players can see only their neighbors' colors, which means that while the problem may seem to have been solved from their perspective, the entire game may still be unsolved.

While highly simplified, this game mimics a number of real-world problems, such as climate change or coordinating between different departments of a company, Christakis said, where from a local perspective, a solution has been reached but globally it has not.

In some games, the researchers introduced software bots instead of human players that simply seek to minimize color conflicts with neighbors. Some of these bots were then programmed to be "noisy," with some having a 10 percent chance of making a random color choice and others a 30 percent chance.

The researchers also experimented with putting these bots in different areas of the network. Sometimes they were placed in central locations that have more connections to other players, and other times they were just placed at random or on the periphery where there are fewer links.

What the researchers found was that games in which bots exhibiting 10 percent noise were placed in the center of the network were typically solved 55.6 percent times faster than sessions involving just humans.

"[The bots] got the humans to change how they interacted with other humans," Christakis said. "They created these kinds of positive ripple effects to more distant parts of the network. So the bots in a way served a kind of teaching function." [The 6 Strangest Robots Ever Created]

There's a fine balance, though. The researchers found that the bots that had a 30 percent change of making a random color choice introduced too much noise and increased the number of conflicts in the group-decision-making process. Similarly, bots that exhibited no randomness actually reduced the randomness of human players, resulting in more of them becoming stuck in unresolvable conflicts, the scientists said.

Iain Couzin, director of the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology in Germany and an expert in collective behavior, said the study's findings mimic what he has seen in animals, where uninformed individuals can actually improve collective decision-making.

He said it is a very important first step toward a scientific understanding of how similar processes impact human behavior, particularly in the context of interactions between humans and machines.

"Already we are making our decisions in the context of algorithms and that's only going to expand as technology advances," he told Live Science. "We have to be prepared for that and understand these types of processes. And we almost have a moral obligation to improve our collective decision-making in terms of climate change and other decisions we need to make at a collective level for humanity."

The new research also points to an alternative paradigm for the widespread introduction of artificial intelligence into society, Christakis said. "Dumb AI" (bots that follow simple rules compared to sophisticated AI) could act as a catalyst rather than a replacement for humans in various kinds of cooperative networks, ranging from the so-called sharing economy (which encompasses services like ride-sharing, home-lending and coworking) to citizen science.

"We're not trying to build AlphaGo or [IBM's] Watson to replace a person we are trying to build technology that helps supplement groups of people, and in a way, I think that might be a little less frightening," Christakis said. "The bots don't need to be very smart because they're interacting with smart humans. They don't need to be able to do stuff by themselves; they just need to help the humans help themselves," he added.

Original article on Live Science.

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How Robots Acting Randomly Can Help Speed Human Problem-Solving - Live Science

Turns out that humans aren't the only animals that contagiously yawn. iStockphoto hide caption

Turns out that humans aren't the only animals that contagiously yawn.

Bears do it; bats do it. So do guinea pigs, dogs and humans. They all yawn. It's a common animal behavior, but one that is something of a mystery.

There's still no consensus on the purpose of a yawn, says Robert Provine, professor of psychology and neuroscience at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Provine has studied what he calls "yawn science" since the early 1980s, and he's published dozens of research articles on it. He says the simple yawn is not so simple.

"Yawning may have the dubious distinction of being the least understood common human behavior," Provine says.

There are many causes for yawning. Boredom, sleepiness, hunger, anxiety and stress all cause changes in brain chemistry, which can trigger a spontaneous yawn. But it's not clear what the yawn accomplishes. One possibility is the yawn perks you up by increasing heart rate, blood pressure and respiratory function.

"[Yawning] stirs up our physiology and it plays an important role in shifting from one state to another," Provine says.

When violinists get ready to go on stage to play a concerto, they often yawn, says Provine. So do Olympians right before a competition, or paratroopers getting ready to do their first jump. One study found that yawning has a similar impact on the brain as a dose of caffeine.

But not all yawn researchers agree with this theory.

"No specific arousing effect of yawning on the brain could be observed in at least five studies," says Adrian Guggisberg, a professor in the department of clinical neurosciences at the University of Geneva.

Guggisberg and fellow researchers reviewed several theories of yawning and concluded that the arousal theory lacks evidence. What they did find were several studies that show yawning is highly contagious among humans, suggesting that "yawns might have a social and communicative function," Guggisberg said in an e-mail.

Looking at yawns, hearing yawns, thinking about yawns or talking about yawns will likely trigger a contagious response. Contagious yawning may have evolved in early humans to boost social bonding, according to Provine. A good group yawn could serve to perk everyone up to be more vigilant about danger, he says.

Another piece of evidence backing up the social bonding theory of yawning is a 2011 study by Ivan Norsicia and Elisabetta Palagi that found people are more likely to copy a yawn if they know the person who is yawning. A stranger's yawn is less likely to trigger a contagious response. And while babies yawn spontaneously, children don't engage in contagious yawning until about age 4 around the same time they're becoming more socially connected.

Now, what about other animals? We know that all vertebrates, critters with backbones, yawn spontaneously. But very few yawn contagiously.

"Until the last few years, the feeling was that contagious yawning was unique to humans," Provine says.

But recently, two more species have been added to the list of contagious yawners: dogs and chimpanzees. When two groups of chimpanzees were shown videos of familiar and unfamiliar chimps yawning, the group watching the chimps they knew engaged in more contagious yawning. This study, by Matthew Campbell and Frans de Waal, supports the theory that yawning plays a role in the evolution of social bonding and empathy.

And dogs not only catch each others' yawns, they are susceptible to human yawning as well. In one study, 29 dogs watched a human yawning and 21 of them yawned as well suggesting that interspecies yawning could help in dog-human communication.

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Yawning May Promote Social Bonding Even Between Dogs And ... - NPR

EDWARDSVILLE - Southern Illinois University Edwardsvilles Paul Rose, PhD, has been named interim dean of the SIUE School of Education, Health and Human Behavior (SEHHB). The appointment is pending approval by the SIU Board of Trustees. Rose replaces Curt Lox, PhD, who resigned to assume duties as dean of the Brooks College of Health at the University of North Florida.

Rose, who will officially begin his duties Thursday, June 1, has served as assistant dean of the SEHHB since 2015 and chair of the Department of Psychology since 2009. He was a visiting assistant professor of psychology at Union College in Schenectady, N.Y., before joining the SIUE faculty in 2005.

Rose has worked with the schools diversity committee to build student mentoring programs, and helped establish the Dr. Rudolf Dreikurs Visiting Scholar Fellowship with the support of an historic gift from the Dreikurs family.

Dr. Roses experience and leadership will allow the School of Education, Health and Human Behavior to continue its positive momentum, said Denise Cobb, PhD, SIUE provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs. It is clear that Paul is a trusted leader, good listener and extraordinarily capable administrator.

His thoughtful and confident style is an invaluable asset. I have had the pleasure of working with him in various capacities, and I am confident that he will be a collaborative and student-centered leader. I look forward to his contributions to our academic leadership team, and I am excited to see what the future holds for the School.

The School of Education, Health and Human Behavior has long valued innovation, Rose said. I look forward to leading and supporting our excellent faculty and staff through the significant changes that lie ahead.

Much of our strength comes from and will continue to come through partnerships. By highlighting the unique opportunities we offer our students, we will attract enthusiastic partners who help us build upon our strengths.

Prior to becoming a full-time administrator, Rose taught undergraduate and graduate courses in statistics, research methods and social psychology. His interdisciplinary research draws on social, personality, consumer and clinical psychology. He has published research on topics such as narcissism, self-esteem, romantic relationship dynamics, materialism and compulsive buying.

Rose serves on the editorial board of Psychology and Marketing and serves on the board of directors fundraising and public relations committee for the Living Independently Now Center of Swansea.

Rose earned a bachelors in psychology from Brigham Young University and achieved both masters and doctoral degrees in psychology from the State University of New York at Buffalo.

A search for a permanent dean will begin during the fall semester.

The SIUE School of Education, Health and Human Behavior prepares students in a wide range of fields including community and public health, exercise science, nutrition, instructional technology, psychology, speech-language pathology and audiology, educational administration, and teaching. Faculty members engage in leading-edge research, which enhances teaching and enriches the educational experience. The School supports the community through on-campus clinics, outreach to children and families, and a focused commitment to enhancing individual lives across the region.

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Rose named interim dean of the SIUE School of Education, Health and Human Behavior - RiverBender.com

As you read this, take a whiff. What smells do you detect? How do these smells affect how you feel?

It's rare that people consciously take in the smells around them, but a new review argues that the humansense of smellis more powerful than it's usually given credit for, and that it plays a bigger role inhuman health and behaviorthan many medical experts realize.

"The fact is the sense of smell is just as good in humans as in other mammals, like rodents and dogs," John McGann, a neuroscientist at Rutgers University-New Brunswick in New Jersey and the author of the new review, said in astatement.

Play Video

The bear was standing on its hind legs on top of a Connecticut woman's back deck with both paws pressed up against the glass, seemingly determine...

People often think of dogs and rats as the superior sniffers in the animal kingdom, but humans also have an extremely keen sense of smell, McGann argued in the review, which was published Thursday in the journalScience. In fact, humans can discriminate amongone trillion different odors, McGann wrote, far more than a commonly cited claim that people can detect only about 10,000 different smells. [10 Things That Make Humans Special]

By overlooking humans' keen smelling abilities, medicine may be missing a key component of human health, McGann said. Smell influences human behavior, from stirring up memories to attracting sexual partners to influencing mood to shaping taste, he said. It's no coincidence that the French word for smell, "sentir," also means to feel; emotion and smell are often intricately linked.

When considering the senses, there's a reason smell is often shunted to third place behind sight and hearing, McGann wrote.

It started in the 19th century, when Paul Broca, a French brain surgeon and anthropologist, observed that humans have proportionately smaller olfactory, or smell-related, organs compared with other animals, according to the review. Broca also noted that people don't exhibit odor-driven behavior to the same degree that other mammals do.

This led Broca to hypothesize in his 1879 writings that smell had taken a backseat role to the other senses in humans in exchange for free will. Years later, Sigmund Freud piggybacked on the idea that human smell is inferior to other senses, suggesting that thesense of smellcould not dominate a rational person, according to the review.

McGann called these conclusions a "gross oversimplification," but they were then further supported by later research. For example, studies from the 20th century found that rats and mice have genes for about 1,000 different kinds ofreceptors that are activated by odors, compared with about 400 such receptors in humans.

It's true that humans have relatively smaller olfactory organs and fewer odor-detecting genes compared with other animals. However, the power ofthe human brainmore than makes up for this.

Play Video

The animated movie "The Secret Life of Pets," one of the summer's biggest blockbusters, explored what our animals are up to after we leave the ho...

"The truth is that 400 different receptors still offer a tremendous range. There are very few odors that humans can't smell despite having practically fewer receptors than rats, mice and dogs," McGann told Live Science. Part of the reason humans candetect so many odorsis thanks to their "much more complicated and powerful brain that's interpreting that information."

When a person smells something, odor molecules bind to receptors in the nose. These receptors send information about the molecules to the human olfactory bulb in the brain, which then sends signals to other areas of the brain to help identify scents. [Tip of the Tongue: The 7 (Other) Flavors Humans May Taste]

This is different from the way smell works in dogs, McGann said. Dogs have a "pump" in their noses that's designed to take in chemicals in liquid form (say, on the side of a fire hydrant) for identification, he said. Because the smelling mechanisms are so different, it's hard to compare humans to dogs, McGann said.

Many studies have linked the humans sense of smell to certain medical conditions.

Dr. Dolores Malaspina, a psychiatrist at New York University Langone Medical Center, agreed that smell can play an important role in medicine. Malaspina was not involved in the new review.

Malaspina has long used smell to help diagnose certain diseases, and her research has connected the human sense of smell with bothschizophreniaanddepression.

Play Video

A woman who smelled something funny about her husband before his Parkinson's diagnosis is prompting new research into how to detect the disease. ...

"Smell among schizophrenia patients is often either distorted or decreased," she told Live Science.

Malaspina has also shown that a loss of smell can lead to depression. This may be linked to how odors trigger the growth of neurons, she said. [10 Things You Didn't Know About the Brain]

"There's evidence that these stimulations of the brain by odors may drive the making of new brain cells," she said.

Loss of smell has been linked to other health problems as well. A 2016studyshowed that a loss of the ability to detect scents was associated with early signs of Alzheimer's disease. And soberingresearchfrom 2014 found that a loss of smell may predict death within five years.

As people age, many gradually lose their sense of smell.Researchhas shown that 75 percent of people lose at least part of their sense of smell by age 80.

It's all the more reason, McGann said, to appreciate the power of human smell and its role in human health.

"When you lose your sense of smell, it's actually a big deal. It influences your ability to take pleasure in food and daily life," McGann said. "There's a significant impact of losing your sense of smell that's not yet fully understood."

Originally published onLive Science.

See the rest here:
Humans' sense of smell is keener than you think - CBS News

(MENAFN Editorial)

Human Behavior and Cognition Expert, Tony J. Selimi, Featured on CBS

Tony J. Selimi, Human Behavior and Cognition Expert, Speaker, Educator and Internationally Published Author, was recently seen on ABC, NBC, CBS and FOX network affiliates around the country as a guest on The Brian Tracy Show

London, England May 9, 2017 Tony J. Selimi, Human Behavior and Cognition Expert, was recently a featured guest on The Brian Tracy Show. The show was hosted by Best-Selling Author and one of the country's leading business minds, Brain Tracy, and features business leaders and experts from around the world. Tony J. Selimi was one of Brian Tracy's recent guests, discussing his five step method to maximize human awareness and awaken people's innate healing faculties, the TJS Evolutionary Method.

Selimi's expertise and specialization in helping people realize their full potential led to an invite to the set of The Brian Tracy Show to tell the revolutionary story on how he went from living homeless on the streets of London to becoming a thought leader. His work has changed the lives of his clients by helping them align their highest values to their daily lives, build iconic ethical businesses, co-loving relationships, achieve work-life balance, and find inner peace and attain ultimate health. His feature has been seen by viewers across the country, and has undoubtedly inspired many.

The Brian Tracy Show, filmed in San Diego, California, is produced by Emmy Award-winning Director and Producer, Nick Nanton, Esq. and Emmy Award winning Producer, JW Dicks, Esq., Co-Founders of America's PremierExperts and The Dicks and Nanton Celebrity Branding Agency. The episode featuring Selimi recently aired on NBC, CBS, ABC and FOX affiliates across the country.

Watch Selimi's appearance on The Brian Tracy Show here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TyeYlGrASdw

About Tony J. Selimi:

Tony Jeton Selimi went from being a teenage victim of war feeling hopeless, impoverished, and abandoned on the streets of London, to graduating with honors from one of London's most prestigious engineering universities UCL. He build a very successful IT career before following his hearts calling to follow the entrepreneurial path that led him to become No.1 Amazon bestselling and award-winning author, key note speaker, co-creator of Living My Illusion Documentary Series and the founder of TJS Cognition, a service educational institution dedicated to unravelling, advancing, and elevating human potential.

He specializes in assisting businesses owners from all market sectors and people from all professions find solutions to their personal and business problems, accelerate their learning, and achieve excellence in all of the eight key areas of life: Spiritual, Mental, Emotional, Physical, Business, Money, Relationship and Love.

Like a transparent mirror, Tony is known for his ability to see through people' problems, unconscious behaviors, thought patterns, skewed perceptions, and dis-empowering beliefs that prevent them from creating and delivering astronomical visions and living the lifestyle they dream about. He helps them break free from shame, guilt, expectations, control, fears, trauma, addictions and other mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual blockages by upgrading their 'cognitive operating system and teaching them how to tap into the infinite wisdom of their interstellar existence.

As a business consultant he globally provides answers to questions and practical solutions to life's challenges in talks, workshops, one to one coaching, mastermind groups, retreats, articles, radio and TV interviews as well as through his books and online downloads of Audio Books and the TJS Evolutionary Meditation Solutions.

His clients are entrepreneurs, leaders, and people from all walks of life who seek his help to manifest their highest vision, to be more healthy, wealthy, wise, spiritual and influential. They range from Coaches, #Sports Personalities, Musicians, Celebrities, MPs, Dr's, Scientists, to CEO's and Managers of FTSE 100 companies such as Microsoft, SAP, Bank of America, E & Y, Gayacards, Vandercom and Deutsche Bank.

Tony appeared in various national magazines including Soul and Spirit, Global Women, Science to Sage, Hitched, Migrant Women, Accelerate Your Business, Changing Careers Magazine, Consciousness Magazine, Your Wellness, Time Out, Pink Paper, Gay Star News, Key Person Influence, and Soul Mate Relationship World Summit.

Some of his recent TV appearance include Digging Deep Show for SKY TV, Top Channel, Klan Kosova, AlsatM, Jeta KohaVision, RTM, MTV2, Kanal 21, and Shenja.

Tony's unique wisdom is sought regularly by various radio broadcasters to inspire their listeners including Hay House Radio, Voice of America, Radio Macedonia, Radio Kosova, Beyond 50, Knowledge for Men, Love and Freedom, Empty Closet, Donna Sebo Show, News for the Soul, Channel Radio, Untangled FM, Self-Discovery, and Spirit Radio.

He loves travelling, consulting, researching, teaching, speaking, and coaching clients globally. Tony loves using his creative flair and in partnership with the owners of Vandercom, a leading telecommunication and IT service Provider Company, he is co-creating inspiring films and documentaries that share his clients' real life breakthrough stories that are emotionally engaging, mind illuminating, and heart awakening to move people into action.

He is known for creating amazing transformation and leaving his clients feeling revitalized, energized, and with a sense of inner peace.

If you would like to learn more about Tony J. Selimi and his services, connect with him at: http://TonySelimi.com

###

Contact:

Christine Enberg

Dicks and Nanton Celebrity Branding Agency

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Human Behavior and Cognition Expert, Tony J. Selimi, Featured on CBS - MENAFN.COM

DETROIT In just a few years, well-mannered self-driving robotaxis will share the roads with reckless, law-breaking human drivers. The prospect is causing migraines for the people developing the robotaxis.

A self-driving car would be programmed to drive at the speed limit. Humans routinely exceed it by 10 to 15 mph (16 to 24 kph) just try entering the New Jersey Turnpike at normal speed. Self-driving cars wouldnt dare cross a double yellow line; humans do it all the time. And then there are those odd local traffic customs to which humans quickly adapt.

In Los Angeles and other places, for instance, theres the California Stop, where drivers roll through stop signs if no traffic is crossing. In Southwestern Pennsylvania, courteous drivers practice the Pittsburgh Left, where its customary to let one oncoming car turn left in front of them when a traffic light turns green. The same thing happens in Boston. During rush hours near Ann Arbor, Michigan, drivers regularly cross a double-yellow line to queue up for a left-turn onto a freeway.

Theres an endless list of these cases where we as humans know the context, we know when to bend the rules and when to break the rules, says Raj Rajkumar, a computer engineering professor at Carnegie Mellon University who leads the schools autonomous car research.

Although autonomous cars are likely to carry passengers or cargo in limited areas during the next three to five years, experts say it will take many years before robotaxis can coexist with human-piloted vehicles on most side streets, boulevards and freeways. Thats because programmers have to figure out human behavior and local traffic idiosyncrasies. And teaching a car to use that knowledge will require massive amounts of data and big computing power that is prohibitively expensive at the moment.

Driverless cars are very rule-based, and they dont understand social graces, says Missy Cummings, director of Duke Universitys Humans and Autonomy Lab.

Driving customs and road conditions are dramatically different across the globe, with narrow, congested lanes in European cities, and anarchy in Beijings giant traffic jams. In Indias capital, New Delhi, luxury cars share poorly marked and congested lanes with bicycles, scooters, trucks, and even an occasional cow or elephant.

Then there is the problem of aggressive humans who make moves such as cutting cars off on freeways or turning left in front of oncoming traffic. In India, for example, even when lanes are marked, drivers swing from lane to lane without hesitation.

Go here to read the rest:
Biggest challenge for self-driving cars? Human drivers - The Recorder

As you read this, take a whiff. What smells do you detect? How do these smells affect how you feel?

It's rare that people consciously take in the smells around them, but a new review argues that the human sense of smell is more powerful than it's usually given credit for, and that it plays a bigger role in human health and behavior than many medical experts realize.

"The fact is the sense of smell is just as good in humans as in other mammals, like rodents and dogs,"John McGann, a neuroscientist at Rutgers University-New Brunswick in New Jersey and the author of the new review, said in a statement.

People often think of dogs and rats as the superior sniffers in the animal kingdom, but humans also have an extremely keen sense of smell, McGann argued in the review, which was published today (May 11) in the journal Science. In fact, humans can discriminate among 1 trillion different odors, McGann wrote, far more than a commonly cited claim that people can detect only about 10,000 different smells. [10 Things That Make Humans Special]

By overlooking humans' keen smelling abilities, medicine may be missing a key component of human health, McGann said. Smell influences human behavior, from stirring up memories to attracting sexual partners to influencing mood to shaping taste, he said. It's no coincidence that the French word for smell, "sentir," also means to feel; emotion and smell are often intricately linked.

When considering the senses, there's a reason smell is often shunted to third place behind sight and hearing, McGann wrote.

It started in the 19th century, when Paul Broca, a French brain surgeon and anthropologist, observed that humans have proportionately smaller olfactory, or smell-related, organs compared with other animals, according to the review. Broca also noted that people don't exhibit odor-driven behavior to the same degree that other mammals do.

This led Broca to hypothesize in his 1879 writings that smell had taken a backseat role to the other senses in humans in exchange for free will. Years later, Sigmund Freud piggybacked on the idea that human smell is inferior to other senses, suggesting that the sense of smell could not dominate a rational person, according to the review.

McGann called these conclusions a "gross oversimplification," but they were then further supported by later research. For example, studies from the 20th century found that rats and mice have genes for about 1,000 different kinds of receptors that are activated by odors, compared with about 400 such receptors in humans.

It's true that humans have relatively smaller olfactory organs and fewer odor-detecting genes compared with other animals. However, the power of the human brain more than makes up for this.

"The truth is that 400 different receptors still offer a tremendous range. There are very few odors that humans can't smell despite having practically fewer receptors than rats, mice and dogs," McGann told Live Science. Part of the reason humans can detect so many odors is thanks to their "much more complicated and powerful brain that's interpreting that information."

When a person smells something, odor molecules bind to receptors in the nose. These receptors send information about the molecules to the human olfactory bulb in the brain, which then sends signals to other areas of the brain to help identify scents. [Tip of the Tongue: The 7 (Other) Flavors Humans May Taste]

This is different from the way smell works in dogs, McGann said. Dogs have a "pump" in their noses that's designed to take in chemicals in liquid form (say, on the side of a fire hydrant) for identification, he said. Because the smelling mechanisms are so different, it's hard to compare humans to dogs, McGann said.

Many studies have linked the humans sense of smell to certain medical conditions.

Dr. Dolores Malaspina, a psychiatrist at New York University Langone Medical Center, agreed that smell can play an important role in medicine. Malaspina was not involved in the new review.

Malaspina has long used smell to help diagnose certain diseases, and her research has connected the human sense of smell with both schizophrenia and depression.

"Smell among schizophrenia patients is often either distorted or decreased," she told Live Science.

Malaspina has also shown that a loss of smell can lead to depression. This may be linked to how odors trigger the growth of neurons, she said. [10 Things You Didn't Know About the Brain]

"There's evidence that these stimulations of the brain by odors may drive the making of new brain cells," she said.

Loss of smell has been linked to other health problems as well. A 2016 study showed that a loss of the ability to detect scents was associated with early signs of Alzheimer's disease. And sobering research from 2014found that a loss of smell may predict death within five years.

As people age, many gradually lose their sense of smell. Research has shown that 75 percent of people lose at least part of their sense of smell by age 80.

It's all the more reason, McGann said, to appreciate the power of human smell and its role in human health.

"When you lose your sense of smell, it's actually a big deal. It influences your ability to take pleasure in food and daily life," McGann said. "There's a significant impact of losing your sense of smell that's not yet fully understood."

Originally published on Live Science.

Continue reading here:
People Smell Great! Human Sniffers Sensitive as Dogs' - Live Science

Introduction

In this lesson, you will read about some of the important figures and discoveries that have greatly advanced the study of human behavior since the early 1900s. After you have explored the online resources, you will discuss what you have learned with your class.

Begin by reading the introductory page A Science Odyssey: Human Behavior.

The following is a list of key figures of the 20th century whose work impacted on or changed the way we view human behavior or treat mental illness. Use the links provided on the A Science Odyssey: Human Behavior page to learn more about these individuals.

Use the links provided at A Science Odyssey: Human Behavior to learn more about the following landmarks in the history of psychology and medical science.

That's My Theory! is an amusing and informative online "game show" in which you have to guess which of the three disguised psychologists is the real Sigmund Freud (based on questions dealing with the personality, mind function, and the purpose of psychology)

In a brief essay, summarize in your own words what you believe is the key difference between how human behavior was viewed in 1900 and how it is viewed now.

See original here:
Human Behavior - Science NetLinks

A new University initiative is bringing together researchers and administrators to apply insights from behavioral science to tackle campus challenges and advance research in that field.

Representatives from 24 administrative units and seven academic departments, programs and centers gathered in March to launch the Campus Behavioral Science Initiative (CBSI), a joint effort of the Office of the Executive Vice President and the Kahneman-Treisman Center for Behavioral Science & Public Policy.

"CBSI aspires to foster collaboration between administrative units and academic researchers to use the campus as a research site, tapping behavioral science to develop innovative solutions to campus challenges," said Treby Williams, the University's executive vice president.

Eldar Shafir, the Class of 1987 Professor in Behavioral Science and Public Policy, professor of psychology and public affairs, and inaugural director of the Kahneman-Treisman Center, said the initiative offers researchers the opportunity to gather valuable data, further their scholarly work and contribute to the University in a new way.

"This campus has a group of very talented and hard-working researchers who try to use behavioral insights to produce better outcomes," Shafir said. "We love and care about this campus, and it is so close and available. Why shouldn't we turn our eye partly to what we can do here?"

Behavioral science focuses on scientific experimentation, controlled observation of real-life behavior, and systematic analysis of data to understand the motivations, limitations and biases inherent in human behavior. The Kahneman-Treisman Center brings together faculty members from departments including psychology, sociology, politics, philosophy and the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs who pursue research in behavioral science.

Williams said the University can benefit from the application of behavioral-science insights as it tackles challenges from developing programs to reduce the number of cars driven to campus each day or reducing campus energy use to guiding employees toward appropriate health-care programs or helping students make better decisions related to healthy eating, sleep and alcohol consumption.

"Innovative solutions to these kinds of challenges require accurate insights into human behavior and decision-making. Without that knowledge, we won't succeed," Williams said.

Learnings from behavioral science have already been used successfully on campus, such as shifting default participation to "opt-in." For example, in the past, eligible faculty members had to take action to opt in to a benefit that gave them a reduced teaching load following the birth of a child. Shifting the benefit to one that faculty members automatically accrue unless they take action to opt out has increased participation on campus. A similar approach for a retirement savings program has increased the amount employees are saving for retirement.

The CBSI kick-off event included a brainstorming session where administrators and researchers offered ideas and suggested areas for potential collaboration. Khristina Gonzalez, associate dean in the Office of the Dean of the College, and Margaret Frye, assistant professor of sociology, expressed an interest in research about the experience of low-income and first-generation students at Princeton. Gonzalez and Frye have already met with colleagues from the departments of politics and psychology to chart their next steps and will be bringing other administrators and researchers into the project in the fall.

Gonzalez oversees the Freshman Scholars Institute and the Scholars Institute Fellows Program, which are designed to empower undergraduates to thrive at Princeton, particularly those from first-generation and low-income backgrounds. She said CBSI presents an opportunity to learn from research about what helps such students succeed and to contribute to additional research on the topic.

"I think it can be a valuable partnership because there is a lot of great, innovativeresearch in this field and working together will help us think about how to use that research to improve interventions to support our students," Gonzalez said.

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University initiative focuses on behavioral science to tackle campus challenges - Princeton University