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The Key to a High IQ? Not Getting Distracted
TIME: A new study suggests that intelligence is more about what the brain chooses to ignore than simply its ability to process information rapidly. The research, which was published in the journal Current Biology, suggests new ways of testing intelligence that may be less biased by cultural knowledge— as many have claimed other IQ tests are. It may also help to explain the profound intellectual talents of some autistic people. “It’s a really interesting potential new paradigm,” says Scott Barry Kaufman, adjunct assistant professor of psychology at New York University, who was not associated with the research.
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Thought of Money Makes You Less Social, Study Suggests
LiveScience: Subtle reminders of money can affect the way people behave in social settings, causing them to be less engaged with others, suggests new research. A group of researchers discussed results from ongoing investigations into how money impacts social relationships here at the 25th annual meeting of the Association for Psychological Science (APS) on Sunday (May 26). "Money holds lots of different associations for different people," said Kathleen Vohs, an associate professor of marketing in the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, who moderated an APS panel on the topic.
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Bending the Curve on a Long War’s Mental Toll
The Chronicle of Higher Education: Washington — The annual convention of the Association for Psychological Science, held here over the Memorial Day weekend, presented plenty of worry for those concerned over the field’s recent, high-profile troubles with replication, data quality, and fraud. There was the half-day session on “Building a Better Psychological Science,” which featured several scientists who have raised alarms about the field in the past two years, including Daniel Kahneman, a professor emeritus of psychology and public affairs at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School, and Brian Nosek, a professor of psychology at the University of Virginia.
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Revisiting the ‘Hormone of Love’
The Huffington Post: It's been more than a decade since oxytocin was first heralded as the "hormone of love" -- a distinction that came with optimistic predictions for future drug therapies. It was just a matter of time before an oxytocin nasal spray would be available on pharmacy shelves, with the potential to cure shyness and dampen anxiety and, perhaps, even treat the social deficits of autism. The excitement was not confined to the popular press. The early animal studies, which showed a link between oxytocin and sociability, generated considerable interest in scientific circles as well, and indeed led to a decade of intense study of the hormone.
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Blood Vessels in the Eye Linked With IQ, Cognitive Function
The width of blood vessels in the retina may indicate brain health years before the onset of dementia and other deficits.
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New Research From Psychological Science
Read about the latest research published in Psychological Science. Vividness of the Future Self Predicts Delinquency Jean-Louis van Gelder, Hal E. Hershfield, and Loran F. Nordgren Does failure to think about the future lead people to engage in delinquent behavior? Participants wrote a letter to themselves either 20 years or 3 months in the future. They were then asked how they would respond to several scenarios involving committing delinquent acts. Participants who wrote letters to a more distant future self made fewer delinquent choices than did those who wrote to a less distant future self.
