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Alcohol tweaks mind wandering in a particularly interesting way, as Schooler and his colleagues report in a new paper entitled “Lost in the Sauce,” published in Psychological Science.

Who doesn’t want to write a serious, scientific paper called “Lost in the Sauce”? Ha!

That particular quote comes from an article on DISCOVER Magazine online, but the link for this comes from Lloyd Morgan’s wonderfully curated Lone Gunman: In Search of the Infogasm. Another choice quote, this time from the linked WSJ article:

In addition, they found that tell-tale burst of gamma waves was almost always preceded by a change in alpha brain-wave intensity in the visual cortex, which controls what we see. They took it as evidence that the brain was dampening the neurons there similar to the way we consciously close our eyes to concentrate. “You want to quiet the noise in your head to solidify that fragile germ of an idea,” says Dr. Jung-Beeman at Northwestern.

Fragile germ of an idea! Love it!

With Arnold ussen behind me carrying the laptop, I walked around the Wicab offices. I managed to avoid most walls and desks, scanning my head from side to side slowly to give myself a wider field of view, like radar. Thinking back on it, I don’t remember the feeling of the electrodes on my tongue at all during my walkabout. What I remember are pictures: high-contrast images of cubicle walls and office doors, as though I’d seen them with my eyes.
Wired 15.04: Mixed Feelings - Sunny Bains, writing for Wired, describing the sensation of “seeing” through a device attached to his tongue. Bizarre and thrilling technology.