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Lack Of Compassion Can Make People Feel Less Moral, Study Shows
Huffington Post: When a stranger asks for money, people choose not to give for a variety of reasons, even if their hearts want to -- perhaps they're not sure what the money will be used for, or perhaps they'd rather give to an organization that helps people in need. Or maybe they just don't want to part with their cash. But a new study in the journal Psychological Science suggests that there could be a hidden cost to not being compassionate -- it might make you feel a little less moral. "Compassion is such a powerful emotion. It's been called a moral barometer," study researcher Daryl Cameron, of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said in a statement.
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Your Brain on Fiction
The New York Times: AMID the squawks and pings of our digital devices, the old-fashioned virtues of reading novels can seem faded, even futile. But new support for the value of fiction is arriving from an unexpected quarter: neuroscience. Brain scans are revealing what happens in our heads when we read a detailed description, an evocative metaphor or an emotional exchange between characters. Stories, this research is showing, stimulate the brain and even change how we act in life. Researchers have long known that the “classical” language regions, like Broca’s area and Wernicke’s area, are involved in how the brain interprets written words.
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The Real Risks of ‘Racy’ Thinking
Huffington Post: I worked in the news business for many years, and sometimes the pace could get hectic. But the work day didn't really charge up until mid-morning. In the early-morning hours, my routine was to leaf through several of the day's newspapers, including the sports section, usually with my feet up on my desk. Occasionally I would check the AP ticker or turn on the TV, but not until after I had spent some time with the papers and my morning coffee. This was back in the 20th century, of course, and looking back, that pace seems almost leisurely by today's standards. Technology has radically altered the way that many of us consume information.
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Comfort or Food? This Harlow Love Song Has the Answer
Harry Harlow conducted his famous experiments on maternal separation and social isolation at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the 1950s and 1960s. Decades later, Brad Wray and his independent study students from Arundel High School in Maryland have set one of those experiments to music. Harlow took baby monkeys from their mothers and placed them with two “surrogate” mothers: one made of wire that dispensed milk and one made of terry cloth that didn’t dispense milk. The song, set to the tune of Jason Mraz’s “I’m Yours,” tells how the baby monkeys had to make a choice.
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Police officers at risk of memory loss after physical exertion
Metro News: Just 60 seconds of adrenaline-pumping activity can 'seriously damage' their recollection of the event, according to UK scientists. They say forgetfulness is often triggered by high-energy events like chasing a suspect. Lorraine Hope, from the University of Portsmouth, believes her findings, published in journal Psychological Science, flag up the potential problems with witness statements. She said: 'Police officers are often expected to remember in detail who said what and how many blows were received or given in the midst of physical struggle or shortly afterwards.
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Visual illusions may help boost sports performance
Yahoo! India: One of the ways in which a player might be able to improve his chances at making a free throw during a basketball tournament could be by tricking himself into thinking that the basket is bigger than it really is, a new study has suggested. Purdue University's psychological scientist Jessi Witt, who has played sports her whole life, started studying how perception relates to sports performance in graduate school. "You hear about athletes making these comments like, oh, I was playing so well, everything seemed like it was moving in slow motion," she said. Much of her research has examined this effect-how people who are doing well at a sport seem to see the world differently.
