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Does Our Innate Ability to Estimate Numbers Benefit From Education?
Children are born with an innate number sense -- the ability to discriminate quickly between different amounts or numbers of objects, even without counting. And research has shown that children who have a more acute number sense -- or Approximate Number System (ANS) -- are also better at mathematics. In a new article published in Psychological Science, researcher Manuela Piazza of the Cognitive Neuroimaging Unit at INSERM in France and colleagues sought to understand whether improvements in ANS ability come naturally with age or whether they are the result of formal education. The researchers tested 38 subjects from an indigenous Mundurucú population in Brazil.
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Study Shows How Bilinguals Switch Between Languages
Individuals who learn two languages at an early age seem to switch back and forth between separate "sound systems" for each language, according to new research conducted at the University of Arizona. The research, to be published in a forthcoming issue of Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, addresses enduring questions in bilingual studies about how bilingual speakers hear and process sound in two different languages.
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Science Galore in the APS Exhibit Hall
This month, thousands of psychological scientists from more than 40 countries will gather at the 25th APS Annual Convention in Washington, DC, USA, to share their research, learn from leaders in the field, and celebrate 25 years of innovative science. Nineteen poster sessions in the APS Exhibit Hall will showcase attendees’ work.
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Fear, Happiness, and Sadness Share Common Neural Building Blocks
Diverse emotions are based on common building blocks of pleasure, displeasure, and arousal, according to new research
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New Research From Clinical Psychological Science
Read about the latest research published in Clinical Psychological Science. The Frequency and Impact of Exposure to Potentially Traumatic Events Over the Life Course Christin M. Ogle, David C. Rubin, Dorthe Berntsen, and Ilene C. Siegler How does the timing and impact of traumatic events differ across the lifespan? Participants between the ages of 55 and 69 reported the number of times and the age at which they experienced traumatic events, the extent to which the trauma formed a central component of their identity, and their symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
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High-Testosterone Competitors More Likely to Choose Red
Why do so many sports players and athletes choose to wear the color red when they compete? A new study to be published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, suggests that it may have to do with their testosterone levels. The new study, conducted by psychological scientist Daniel Farrelly of the University of Sunderland and colleagues, demonstrated that males who chose red as their color in a competitive task had higher testosterone levels than other males who chose blue. “The research shows that there is something special about the color red in competition, and that it is associated with our underlying biological systems,” says Farrelly.