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Stop Touching My Face! Why the Easiest Way to Prevent Coronavirus Is So Hard
Partway through a conversation about simple solutions to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, a certain reporter caught himself, his hand flitting across his face with absent-minded determination. A rub to the eye and a scratch to the nose before settling into a pose akin to Rodin’s “Thinker,” with chin in palm, fingers curled against the mouth. It’s a typical taxonomy of face touches, but it would make public health experts shudder—especially now. That’s because this reporter just moved his hand over every place a respiratory infection—including the coronavirus—finds entree into the human body, all in less than a minute.
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New Content From Perspectives on Psychological Science
A sample of articles on innocence, false confessions, and wrongful convictions, the psychological study of art and aesthetics, new ways of reducing prejudice, and a psychometric model of emotions.
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New Research in Psychological Science
A sample of research on self-control and brain activity, working memory and long-term memory, and aging and how specific memories or associations are remembered.
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Psychological Research on the World Stage: AAAS News Briefings Feature APS Members
APS members presented recent PSPI findings at press briefings held during the AAAS annual meeting. [OBSERVATIONS March 3, 2020]
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Psychology: Songs With “You” in the Text Apparently Particularly Successful
Grace was not granted, there was no mercy, no escape. Anyone who still managed to avoid attending a screening of the Hollywood big-budget film "Bodyguard" at the beginning of the 1990s was still confronted with the pop cultural foundations of this work. The title track, "I Will Always Love You," was played on all radio channels for months, sung by Whitney Houston, who also played the leading female role in the film. The song became one of the greatest hits in pop history, was number one on the charts in 16 countries, sold about twelve million copies as a single and became popular in countless ears worldwide. So the question arises: how could this happen? ...
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Geoff Johnson: Staying Challenged is the Best Way to Fight Off the Years
Aging is often wrongly associated with a decline in cognitive abilities, especially those abilities important for maintaining functional independence such as learning new skills or pursuing further and enhancing old skills. The aging/learning question remains moot despite a plethora of tests and studies that seem, at first glance, to suggest that older people may do less well than younger people on standard intelligence tests. But when other studies follow individuals over time, very little decline is seen. Tests of verbal skill such as information retention, vocabulary and comprehension seem to remain steady. ...