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How A Position Of Power Can Change Your Voice
NPR: Most radio reporters, I think it's fair to say, think about their voices a lot, and work to sound powerful and authoritative. I know my voice has changed since my very first radio story 10 years ago. That's why I was intrigued by a recent study in the journal Psychological Science on the voice of authority. Scientists wanted to hear if people's voices change in predictable ways when they are put into positions of power. Plus, they wondered if listeners could detect those changes.
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Illusions Fool Even the Blind
The New York Times: That bats use echolocation to navigate and to find food is well known. But some blind people use the technique, too, clicking their tongues and snapping fingers to help identify objects. Now, a study reports that human echolocators can experience illusions, just as sighted individuals do. Gavin Buckingham, a psychology lecturer at Heriot-Watt University in Scotland, and his colleagues at the University of Western Ontario asked 10 study subjects to pick up strings attached to three boxes of identical weight but different sizes. Overwhelmingly, the sighted individuals succumbed to what is known as the “size-weight illusion.” The bigger boxes felt lighter to them.
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People Can Be Convinced They Committed a Crime That Never Happened
Lab-based research shows that adults can be convinced, over the course of a few hours, that as teens they perpetrated crimes that never actually occurred.
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How a Habit Becomes an Addiction
Research suggests that only 20–30% of drug users actually descend into addiction — defined as the persistent seeking and taking of drugs even in the face of dire personal consequences. Why are some people who use drugs able to do so without turning into addicts, while others continue to abuse, even when the repercussions range from jail time to serious health problems? In a comprehensive review in the European Journal of Neuroscience, Barry Everitt outlines the neural correlates and learning-based processes associated with the transition from drug use, to abuse, to addiction.
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The Psychology of the Shortlist
The Huffington Post: Imagine this scenario: A plum job has opened up, one that you really want and feel well qualified to hold. So you go through the rigorous process of applying. You line up references, write essays, and finally get an interview. The interview goes well and you're feeling confident, and indeed you get a call saying you've been shortlisted for the job. Out of a pool of a hundred applicants, you are among just three who are highly and equally qualified. Would you come back in for another round of interviews? You can almost taste victory now. So you do the interviews, and again all seems to go very well. Then the job goes to someone else.
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Choosing Between Carrots and Cake Is a Snap Decision, Researchers Say
ABC News: Whether you stick to your diet or give into temptation comes down to just milliseconds, a new study suggests. Researchers from Caltech tested this theory by asking 28 volunteers to rate the health virtues of more than 150 foods after fasting for four hours. The subjects were then shown random pairings of foods on a computer screen, one healthier than the other, then invited to choose between two. On average, information about taste begins influencing the decision making process about 200 milliseconds sooner than health information, according to findings published in the latest issue of the journal Psychological Science.
