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In the autumn, squirrels think about nuts so much that it may make their brains bigger
In the world of squirrel researchers, Stephanie Preston, a professor of psychology at the University of Michigan, is a bit of a legend. “She’s the one that actually discovered the head flick and it was first to document it,” says Mikel Delgado, a postdoctoral fellow at the School of Veterinary Medicine at the University of California-Davis. That head flick is just one of several ways that squirrels assess nuts to either eat them or store them away for the winter. “She showed that the squirrels were actually weighing the nut as they shake their heads,” says Lucia Jacobs, professor of psychology at the University of California-Berkeley, where both Delgado and Preston did their graduate work.
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Social scientists reveal everything you need to know about holding the perfect meeting
Does your boss have an unhealthy relationship with flow charts? Do your colleagues scroll on their phones during meetings? Do you find meetings that should take 15 minutes last an hour? You’re not alone, but help is on the way thanks to a team of psychological scientists who analyzed nearly 200 scientific studies of workplace meetings. Their report — with actionable tips on how to improve meetings — is published in the latest edition of the peer-reviewed “Current Directions in Psychological Science,” a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.
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Young people are vulnerable to loneliness too
At its most basic level, loneliness is unwanted solitude. However, it can also be a sense of isolation completely unrelated to how many people are around. It’s a feeling that has more to do with the quality of our relationships than our real or virtual friend count. One can feel cripplingly lonely in a crowd and, in many ways, this its worst manifestation − like dying of thirst on a desert island surrounded by cool, blue, undrinkable, seawater. Psychologists distinguish between social loneliness and emotional loneliness. The former is related to fitting in and feeling like we belong, while emotional loneliness is about separation from loved ones.
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Can Childhood Stress Affect the Immune System?
Whether it’s growing up in gut-wrenching poverty, dealing with dysfunctional family dynamics, or coping with persistent bullying in school, extreme adversity can shatter a child’s sense of emotional well-being. But does it also place kids at higher of developing heart disease, diabetes, and other chronic health conditions as adults? Katherine Ehrlich, a researcher at University of Georgia, Athens, wants to take a closer look at this question.
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Touch Can Produce Detailed, Lasting Memories
Exploring objects through touch can generate detailed, durable memories for those objects, even when we don’t intend to memorize the object’s details.
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Bringing Up Baby
Bababababa, dadadadada, ahgagaga. Got that? Babies are speaking to us all the time, but most of us have no clue what they're saying. To us non-babies, it all sounds like charming, mysterious, gobbledegook. To researchers, though, babbling is knowable, predictable, and best of all, teachable. This week, we'll find out how to decipher the vocabulary, and the behavior, of the newest members of the human family. In the second half of the show, we'll look at the relationship between children and the adults who care for them.
