NLPhilia Blog

Our inimitable CIA has released the full text of its book, “Psychology of Intelligence Analysis,” in HTML and PDF. From the author’s preface:

This volume pulls together and republishes, with some editing, updating, and additions, articles written during 1978-86 for internal use within the CIA Directorate of Intelligence. Four of the articles also appeared in the Intelligence Community journal Studies in Intelligence during that time frame. The information is relatively timeless and still relevant to the never-ending quest for better analysis.

The articles are based on reviewing cognitive psychology literature concerning how people process information to make judgments on incomplete and ambiguous information. I selected the experiments and findings that seem most relevant to intelligence analysis and most in need of communication to intelligence analysts. I then translated the technical reports into language that intelligence analysts can understand and interpreted the relevance of these findings to the problems intelligence analysts face.

Psychology of Intelligence Analysis, HTML, table of contents

Psychology of Intelligence Analysis, full PDF version, 1.9 MB direct link

(Another hat tip to BoingBoing!)

Is the research being better refined, or are we becoming more forgetful? This Lifehacker article points to this article on Live Science:

Researchers have often debated the maximum amount of items we can store in our conscious mind, in what’s called our working memory, and a new study puts the limit at three or four.

More goodies I remembered to post about:

• Harry Lorayne is a prolific author and an expert on the subject of memory improvement.
• George Miller’s article, “The Magical Number Seven…”

From my old friend Chad’s blog comes When I first realized I was old. Funny stuff. 🙂

A recent article in discovery News indicates that there are neurological differences between the experience of dyslexia in native readers of Chinese and native readers of English:

Dyslexia affects different parts of children’s brains depending on whether they are raised reading English or Chinese. That finding, reported in Monday’s online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, means that therapists may need to seek different methods of assisting dyslexic children from different cultures.

Read the rest at Discovery News from the Discovery Channel.

(Hat tip to BoingBoing!)

Additional note: I read an interesting book by a former dyslexic. It is called “The Gift of Dyslexia”. Check the author’s Web site for more information.

Over at Interesting Thing of the Day there’s a nice article on Synesthesia:

There are at least 50 different types of synesthesia, involving various combinations of senses both as the triggering stimulus and the secondary response. Some forms of synesthesia are experienced as multiple modalities of a single physical sense. For example, seeing a number might evoke a certain color for one synesthete, while in another person the same number might cause a different visual sensation, such as a pattern or shape. One sense may also trigger another, as in a tactile sensation that has a taste. But not all synesthetic experiences are restricted to the five senses. In some synesthetes, a word or sound might evoke a sensation of motion, or even a kinesthetic response, inducing the person to assume a particular physical position. There are also cases in which abstract concepts, such as days of the week or months of the year, cause the sensation of shapes, colors, or other experiences.

Go read the article or listen to the podcast (9:26, 8.64 MB, mp3).

The New York Times reports on a study that shows that training your memory improves your overall intelligence:

Until now, it had been widely assumed that the kind of mental ability that allows us to solve new problems without having any relevant previous experience — what psychologists call fluid intelligence — is innate and cannot be taught though people can raise their grades on tests of it by practicing.

But in the new study, researchers describe a method for improving this skill, along with experiments to prove it works.

Go read the full article.

(Thanks for the heads-up, honey.)

From a wonderful site, Forwarded Funnies, comes the following story:

One evening an old Cherokee Indian told his grandson about a battle that was going on inside himself.

He said,”My son, it is between 2 wolves.”

One is evil: Anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority and ego..”

The other is good: “Joy, Peace, Love, Hope, Serenity, Humility, Kindness, Benevolence, Empathy, Generosity, Truth, Compassion and Faith.”

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, “Which wolf wins?”

The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one I feed.”

Wow. LSD inventor Albert Hoffman died recently. He was a hundred and two years old.

Albert Hofmann, LSD inventor, RIP – Boing Boing

If you’re not already aware of the mess surrounding Carmine Baffa’s recent arrest for rape and statutory rape, I won’t bother you with the details. You can Google it and get the news and opinions.

If you feel you have been harmed in any way by Carmine Baffa, though, my old friend Jackie Patti wants to hear from you. She has formed a Google group for you and those in your position.

From a recent post in this NLP Connections thread:

This is a closed group, only those who’ve been involved with Carmine directly are eligible to join. It’s not for cops or investigators, not for folks just following the soap opera, but for people who knew him who need to talk about it.

I know a lot of the victims myself. If I don’t know you, you’ll have to email me and explain who you are, how you knew Carmine, and why you want to join. Anyone who wants to join should send email to jpatti@ccil.org*

Please spread the word that this group exists to any victims of Carmine that you know.

To join, go to: Carmine recovery | Google Groups

*I obfuscated Jackie’s e-mail address. It should work fine if you click the link.

My S/O pointed me to news of a free telephone session with hypnotist John Morgan. Check out the postscript on this post on the Grasshopper Notes Blog:

I am offering a FREE Hypnosis session via conference call this Thursday night, April 24th at 9 PM EDT and you’re invited. Did I mention the session is FREE? The call is limited to 100 people.

The actual post is pretty cool, too.