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The Memory Illusion
Scientific American: In my book The Memory Illusion I cover a wide spectrum of ways in which our memories can betray us, and why you may not be who you think you are. In celebration of the book’s publication, I’m pleased to share with you a taste of some of the concepts that it explores in depth. You can also watch a short animated video about the book here. Can you trust your memory? Picture this. You are in a room full of strangers and you are going around introducing yourself. You say your name to about a dozen people, and they say their names to you. How many of these names are you going to remember? More importantly, how many of these names are you going tomisremember?
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Cultivating Wisdom at Work
As the tutor of Alexander the Great, the Greek philosopher Aristotle knew a thing or two about the qualities that a strong leader must possess. In Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle explains that all great leaders possess one specific trait: practical wisdom. Wisdom allows leaders to accurately size up a situation and make the best possible decisions for both themselves and others. A recent study conducted by Igor Grossmann (University of Waterloo) and colleagues sought to answer a question about wisdom that has plagued philosophers ranging from Aristotle to Confucius: Is wisdom something we’re born with, or is it a quality that we can cultivate?
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New Research From Psychological Science
Read about the latest research published in Psychological Science: Pupillary Contagion in Infancy: Evidence for Spontaneous Transfer of Arousal Christine Fawcett, Victoria Wesevich, and Gustaf Gredebäck Pupillary contagion -- when an individual's pupil size influences the pupil size of an observer -- is thought to be an automatic mechanism that facilitates prosocial responding and group cohesion. To explore whether the phenomenon might exist early in life, researchers examined the pupillary responses of 6- and 9-month-olds.
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L’immenso potere dei “like” su una mente adolescente (The immense power of the “like” of a teenage mind)
La Stampa: L’influenza dei social network e, in generale delle nuove tecnologie, sulle nostre abitudini e sulla nostra mente è ormai da tempo sotto attento esame degli scienziati. Superata la fase delle argomentate opinioni e degli illustri commenti, grazie ai risultati delle ricerche, oggi possiamo avere un quadro sempre più dettagliato dei loro effetti sul nostro cervello. In uno studio apparso sulla rivista Psychological Science, i neuroscienziati dell’Università della California a Los Angeles UCLA hanno analizzato il funzionamento dei circuiti cerebrali di un adolescente mentre frequenta un social network, evento tutt’altro che saltuario. Read the whole story: La Stampa
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For Teenagers, the Pleasure of ‘Likes’
The New York Times: Move over sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll. For today’s teenager, it’s all about the “likes.” A “like,” for the uninitiated, refers to the positive feedback given to a post on social media. And new research shows that likes appear to be somewhat intoxicating to teenagers. The same reward center in the brain that is involved in the sensation of pleasure and activated by thoughts of sex, money or ice cream also is turned on when teenagers see their photos getting a lot of likes on social media.
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The sneaky ways babies get inside our heads
The Washington Post: Big eyes, bigger heads and squishy little noses. The physical characteristics that make babies so squeezable are called the Kindchenschema, and they keep parents all over the animal kingdom from leaving stinky infants to their own devices. But research suggests that this cuteness does more than just tell your lizard brain that the squirming screamer in your arms is important. "Cute" could actually be a complex, multi-sensory attack that babies have evolved to hijack your brain. Cute is a long-standing interest of Morten Kringelbach of Oxford University.
