Exclusive online articles
The human brain may be the most complex structure in the universe. Expand your mind exploring the world of thought in our library of exclusive online articles below, produced to complement the print issue of 'Big Picture on Thinking'.
- Looking and learning
- Why do I think and feel?
- Who am I?
- Why do I do what I do?
- Further information and useful links
Looking and learning
Our brains are staggeringly clever. They take in incredible amounts of information, filter out what is not needed, store away information for future reference, recall past experience, and control what the rest of the body does. We are just beginning to work out how.
Memory tricks
How reliable is our memory?
Amnesia and deliberate forgetting
Amnesia - loss of memory - takes many forms and can be hugely distressing.
Strange times
Some people with brain damage, or by a quirk of fate, lack a very specific mental function. Studies of these people can tell us much about how the brain works.
Why do I think and feel?
We sometimes think of a brain as a powerful computer. But it is much more than that. Our brains are also home to our feelings, moods, personalities and character. Courage is not found in the heart but in our brain's neural networks.
Animal personalities
Do individual animals have distinct personalities?
Moody blues
Does our state of mind affect our response to illness?
Who am I?
We can usually tell when we have spoken and when we have listened to others. Our brains can distinguish 'us' from 'them'.
We also have a perception of our personality and character. We have a sense of ourselves occupying our body and can imagine an existence outside it.
Because these impressions exist just within our own heads they are very difficult to study. Do you feel pain in the same way as I do? Or experience the colour red in the same way? We are beginning to discover how the brain creates these internal impressions, including those of self and self-identity.
Sleep work
Want to improve your dance skills? Take to your bed.
A moving story
To control our movements, the brain predicts what input it should receive. This has important implications for tickling…
Reading the mind
Scientists can now predict what a person is seeing just by looking at their brain, even in the absence of conscious awareness.
Animal consciousness
Can animals be said to be conscious? Or to have a mind? The answers are not obvious.
Language
Language may have been one of the decisive factors in the success of early humans. Language skills seem to be 'built in' to the human brain.
Why do I do what I do?
We usually like to believe that we are free agents, capable of informed choice about what we do.
Where naughty treats are concerned, though, we find it convenient to think we are driven by powers beyond our control.
Both points of view are correct, but it is not always obvious how much conscious control we actually have. Even when we think we have made a conscious choice, this may actually be an illusion…
Animal models
Is it really possible to use experimental animals to study human behaviour and decision making?
Lobotomy
The lobotomy has a bad name, but it won its inventor a Nobel Prize. Surgical intervention in the brain does have its place in the medical armoury, however.