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Looking for Trouble (and Seeing It)
The Huffington Post: I've known a few troublemakers over the years. These were guys with huge chips on both shoulders, who would gladly pick a fight if you looked at them wrong. And looking at them wrong could really mean doing nothing provocative at all, because they saw signs of hostility and threat where others did not, especially in others' faces. They were literally looking for trouble. Scientists and clinicians are interested in the dynamic interaction of perception and aggression. Looking for trouble, and seeing it, may be a deep cognitive bias--a negativity bias--that distorts normal emotional processing.
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Smiling during stress may help the heart
United Press International: People who smile even though they don't feel like it had lower heart beat levels, U.S. researcher suggest. Psychological scientists Tara Kraft and Sarah Pressman of the University of Kansas conducted a series of experiments involving 169 participants from a Midwestern university. The study involved two phases -- training and testing. During the training phase, participants were divided into three groups, and each group was trained to hold a different facial expression. For the testing phase, participants were asked to work on multitasking activities. What the participants didn't know was that the multitasking activities were designed to be stressful.
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Athlete rituals a theater of the bizarre
Deutsche Welle: Michael Phelps may be known for winning a record 22 Olympic medals. What's less known is that whenever he gets ready to race, he walks to the starting block, takes off his headphones that have been blasting Michael Jackson, and swings his arms three times. Before tennis player Serena Williams won gold in women's singles, she took her shower sandals to the court, tied her shoelaces in a specific way and bounced the ball five times, as she has in every competition for more than 15 years. She also wore the same pair of socks she had been wearing throughout the Olympics, like she does at every tournament. Athletes are often a superstitious lot.
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Can You Guess These Athletes’ Nationalities?
Slate: Watching the Summer Olympics can be confusing; there are people of more nationalities in one place than you’d see in a Coke commercial. Depending on the sport, it can be hard to tell where the athletes are from (there’s not a lot of flag space on a Speedo). One minute you’re cheering for what you think is an American hero, the next she’s waving a Union Jack over her head and belting out “God Save the Queen.” But several decades of research suggests there are subtle ways to pick an American athlete out of a crowd based on just a smile or a wave. ...
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New Research on Language From Psychological Science
Read about new research on language published in Psychological Science and Current Directions in Psychological Science. Semantic Priming From Crowded Words Su-Ling Yeh, Sheng He, and Patrick Cavanagh Research has shown that visual crowding impairs word recognition. Because semantic processing occurs after word recognition, it follows that crowding should also eliminate semantic priming effects (i.e., when exposure to a word influences later responses to semantically similar target words). In this study, participants saw Chinese prime words presented with four nonwords flanking them (crowded condition) or by themselves (isolated condition).
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Games to Sharpen the Brain
The Wall Street Journal: If two start-ups have their way, videogames might cure more than just boredom. They could also be used to treat attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. Akili Interactive Labs Inc. of Boston, formed by start-up-creating firm PureTech Ventures, and San Francisco company Brain Plasticity Inc. are seeking Food and Drug Administration approval for a videogame treatment they hope clinicians will turn to before prescribing medicines for ADHD. The disorder, whose symptoms include difficulty paying attention and remaining focused, affects 9% of adolescents and 4.1% of adults in the U.S., according to the American Psychiatric Association.
