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How to Predict a Baby’s First Word
The Atlantic: After about a year, give or take, of staring and babbling, babies eventually begin to say their first words. Mama. Ball. Dog. Millions of parents all over the world know this. Now, researchers at Indiana University and the Georgia Institute of Technology have discovered new clues about how that actually happens—how babies learn those initial words. It turns out, the researchers report in a new paper, that a baby’s first words are likely tied to their visual experiences and how they see the world around them. Read the whole story: The Atlantic
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If your gift choices seem to disappoint, psychology may explain why
Los Angeles Times: So, you fancy yourself a really good giver of gifts, don’t you? You think really hard about your prospective gift recipient’s style and taste. You go for something that really says, “I get you!” Choose a gift from someone’s gift registry? Nah, you say: I can do better than that. Sometimes you even spend a little more than you should on that special something. It’s worth it, you figure: My giftee is going to be bowled over by this. ...
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There’s Another Big Window for Learning After Childhood
New York Magazine: Children rightly have a reputation for being little knowledge sponges, absorbing all the information that’s around them. But if you happen to not be a child, take heart: There’s new evidence that your brain may be especially teachable later on down the line, too. Such is the lesson of a recent paper lead-authored by University College London cognitive neuroscientist Lisa J. Knoll and highlighted by David Robson at the BPS Research Digest. Published in Psychological Science, the research suggests that teens and even full-blown adults have a shot at learning excellence. Read the whole story: New York Magazine
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Internet Use in Class Tied to Lower Test Scores
Students who surfed the web in a college course had lower scores on the final exam than did those who didn’t go online.
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New Research From Psychological Science
Read about the latest research published in Psychological Science: The Oxytocin Receptor Gene (OXTR) and Face Recognition Roeland J. Verhallen, Jenny M. Bosten, Patrick T. Goodbourn, Adam J. Lawrance-Owen,Gary Bargary, and J. D. Mollon A recent study by Skuse and colleagues found an association between face recognition and a single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) of the oxytocin receptor gene (OXTR) called rs237887 in a group of high-functioning children with autism and their first-degree relatives. In that study, Skuse and colleagues used the Warrington Recognition Memory Test for Faces to examine face recognition.
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The trolley problem: would you kill one person to save many others?
The Guardian: In the 2015 British thriller Eye in the Sky, a military team locates a terrorist cell preparing an attack expected to kill hundreds. They command a drone that can drop a bomb on the terrorists, preventing their attack. As the team readies the bomb, their cameras spy a little girl selling bread within the blast radius. Should they go through with their mission – killing the girl in order to prevent the deaths of many others? This modern-day moral dilemma has its roots in a classic philosophical thought experiment known as the trolley problem.
