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To Avoid Stupid Mistakes, Think in French
Bloomberg BusinessWeek: Would you take a bet that offered you an even chance of winning $12 and losing $10? If you’re like most people, you would not. But what if someone offered you the bet in French? New research in the journal Psychological Science suggests that, assuming you understand French, you would. What is going on here? The explanation is not—as a France-bashing wag might suggest—that it’s always good to bet against the French. The same effect appears when wagers are presented in Japanese, Spanish—even English, if it’s a person’s second language.
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How to Handle Little Liars
The Wall Street Journal: When Cindy Ballagh's 10-year-old son Kaden lost his portable videogame recently, she asked him where he last put it. His answer: on his dresser. After they spent several minutes searching on, under and all around the dresser, she happened to spot the game—buried in his bed. He had been playing with it there the night before and broke a rule by falling asleep with it, says Ms. Ballagh, of Clarksville, Tenn.
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Featured Interview – Dr. Raymond Green
Online Psychology Degrees: Interview with Dr. Raymond Green: The science behind psychology, and emerging trends in the field Watch the interview here
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Culture, Not Biology, Shapes Language
NPR: There's no language gene. There's no innate language organ or module in the human brain dedicated to the production of grammatical language. There are no meaningful human universals when it comes to how people construct sentences to communicate with each other. Across the languages of the world (estimated to number 6,000-8,000), nouns, verbs, and objects are arranged in sentences in different ways as people express their thoughts. The powerful force behind this variability is culture. So goes the argument in Language: The Cultural Tool, the new book I'm reading by Daniel Everett.
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How to Spot a Scoundrel: Fidgeting and Trust
Imagine the original job interview. The first one ever, back on the prehistoric savannahs of eastern Africa. It wouldn’t have been exactly like a modern job interview, because early humans had no resumes or Linked-In or letters of recommendation to guide them. There was very little in the way of personal or professional reputation to go on, so in that sense the exchange was much trickier. But the fundamental idea was the same: Somehow the interviewer had to judge, in a brief spot of time, if the applicant—a complete stranger—was worthy of trust. Is this a person to do business with, to entrust with your money and your financial future?
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What Cocktail Parties Teach Us
The Wall Street Journal: You're at a party. Music is playing. Glasses are clinking. Dozens of conversations are driving up the decibel level. Yet amid all those distractions, you can zero in on the one conversation you want to hear. This ability to hyper-focus on one stream of sound amid a cacophony of others is what researchers call the "cocktail-party effect." Now, scientists at the University of California in San Francisco have pinpointed where that sound-editing process occurs in the brain—in the auditory cortex just behind the ear, not in areas of higher thought.
