Sessions at SXSW Interactive 2012 about Neuroscience

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Friday 9th March 2012

• Get Smart! Hack Your Brain for Peak Performance

  by Megan Miller, Daniel Wetmore, Michael Scanlon and Dave Asprey

  The “quantified self” trend of tracking and tweaking physical performance is all the rage in Silicon Valley, especially among type-A data geeks and weekend-warriors hoping to gain an athletic edge. But the most interesting “body hacks” won’t just make you faster, stronger or leaner… they’ll actually improve your brain.

  We’ll explain how to dramatically cut the time it takes to learn a new skill by writing critical information to your brain’s hard drive during sleep. You'll learn how to grow relaxed and calm with the help of a heartbeat- and brainwave-syncing device. And we'll explain how to feed your brain with the optimal nutrition for high-powered cognitive processing.

  In this panel, you’ll get an overview of the current state of cognitive enhancement from Bonnier R&D technology researcher Megan Miller. Brain-hacker Dave Asprey will deliver a first-hand look at the fringes of self-experimentation. And you'll find out how emerging software and biofeedback technologies are making it possible to improve sleep, cognition and memory from Stanford neuro-scientist Daniel Wetmore and Lumosity.com cofounder Michael Scanlon.

  • Neuroscience

  At 2:00pm to 3:00pm, Friday 9th March

  In Salon H, Hilton Austin Downtown

  Coverage audio clip

• The Secret Lives of the Brain

  by David Eagleman

  If the conscious mind--the part you consider you--is just the tip of the iceberg in the brain, what is all the rest doing? Neuroscientist David Eagleman, author of the New York Times bestseller Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain, shows that most of what you do, think and believe is generated by parts of your brain to which you have no access. Here's the exposé about the non-conscious brain and all the machinery under the hood that keeps the show going.

  • Neuroscience

  At 3:30pm to 4:30pm, Friday 9th March

  In Ballroom EF, Austin Convention Center

  Coverage audio clip

• Uncertainty: Fuel for Brilliance

  by Jonathan Fields

  Drawing upon a wealth of leading research, neuroscience, case-studies and personal experience from his new book - Uncertainty: Turning Fear & Doubt Into Fuel for Brilliance - Fields reveals a set of environmental changes, workflow adaptations and personal practices that profoundly alter the deeper-psychology of creation and innovation, fueling you to bring exponentially better solutions to life faster, and do so with far more ease and far less angst.

  • Neuroscience

  At 5:00pm to 5:20pm, Friday 9th March

  In Ballroom G, Austin Convention Center

  Coverage audio clip

Saturday 10th March 2012

• The Final Frontier of Reverse Engineering

  by George Hotz

  You are turing computable. Yet the three pounds in your head is orders of magnitude more powerful than all the silicon based compute power on earth, draws between 20 and 40 watts, and we have almost no clue how it works. In the coming decade, we will get our first glimpses into this magic box, and unveil age old questions such as the nature of consciousness. Coming from a reverse engineering background, I will propose some experiments to finally start cracking the problem open. Imagine implanting a communications cortex into brains before the regions are specialized. Envision a high bandwidth pipe into the seat of consciousness. Forget virtual reality, what if we mess with the brain's data structures on a lower level? I hope to leave you with a vision of what will be possible; the coming merger of man and machine may be crazier than we all think.

  • Neuroscience
  • Reverse Engineering

  At 12:30pm to 1:30pm, Saturday 10th March

  In Texas Ballroom 1-3, Hyatt Regency Austin

  Coverage audio clip

Sunday 11th March 2012

• How Brain Science Turns Browsers into Buyers

  by Derek Halpern, Brian Clark, AK Pradeep and Roger Dooley

  Need to boost website conversion and sales? Want to accomplish more with fewer resources? You need to appeal to and engage your customer’s brain. The vast majority of your buyer’s decision-making is driven by emotion and unconscious processes, and if you are only selling features, benefits, and prices you aren’t maximizing your success. Learn how to apply cutting-edge neuroscience, neuromarketing, and behavior research in designing your site, crafting persuasive copy, and more. But don’t worry, this is a jargon-free presentation. The expert panelists, all from different backgrounds, will focus on techniques that produce bottom-line results.

  • Conversion Optimization
  • Marketing
  • Neuroscience

  At 11:00am to 12:00pm, Sunday 11th March

  In Capital Ballroom B, InterContinental Stephen F. Austin

  Coverage write-up audio clip slide deck