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Hop In!
Welcome to the new APS blog about science of behavior on wheels. In this new feature, we will showcase a variety of research on the habits, behaviors, and emotions we display when driving motor vehicles. The content will stretch across a variety of research areas, including cognition, perception, social interaction, and attention. We hope this will provide you with insights on driving safely.
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Kids and Traffic: Looking Without Seeing
Getting hit by a car is among the leading causes of death for kids 5- to 9-years-old. It’s not hard to speculate why. Children are easily distracted, and because they’re smaller, they’re more at risk of dying from their injuries. But recent studies suggest another basic reason that so many young pedestrians die in traffic accidents—they simply don’t see cars coming toward them. London researchers have found that kids’ perceptual and attention abilities are slow to develop, making them less capable of noticing an oncoming car, let alone the vehicle’s proximity and speed. One of these studies was reported recently in Frontiers of Human Neuroscience.
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Dads Who Wash the Dishes Raise More Aspirational Daughters
TIME: Dads who want their daughters to aim for prestigious professions should start by doing the dishes or loading the washing machine, a new study suggests. The study, to be published in the journal Psychological Science, found that fathers who perform household chores are more likely to bring up daughters who break out of the mold of traditionally female jobs and aspire to careers in business, legal and other professions, CTV reports. Read the whole story: TIME
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Are Minimalist Classrooms Better?
The Boston Globe: TEACHERS, TAKE NOTE: Consider a more minimalist look for your classroom. Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University found that when kindergarten students were taught in a classroom with decorations on the wall—posters, maps, artwork—typical of many classrooms, they were more distracted and, as a result, performed worse on subsequent tests of the learning material, compared to students taught in an un-decorated classroom. Read the whole story: The Boston Globe
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Blacks in Prison: Perception and Punishment
The Huffington Post: Everyone has heard the statistics on the incarceration of black Americans, but they bear repeating. Blacks make up nearly 40 percent of the inmates in the nation's prisons, although they are only 12 percent of the U.S. population. Some experts estimate that one in every four black men will spend some time behind bars during his lifetime. There is no explanation for this disparity that is okay. There are many theories about these shameful numbers, and punitive criminal justice policies certainly contribute. About half the states have some kind of habitual offender law that mandates harsh sentences for repeat offenders.
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Cat People are Smarter than Dog People, Study Says
CNET: I fear I may have found a more emotive subject that Apple vs. Samsung. Or Apple vs. Microsoft. Or just Apple. For one of the world's top academic institutions, Carroll University in Wisconsin, decided to tread into that cauldron of high dudgeon: cats vs. dogs. I understand that, though some people have pets of both types, many take sides on this issue. I can now say, with hand raised as if under oath, that those who say dogs make for the better pets are plainly lacking in intelligence. Read the whole story: CNET
