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What Emotions Are (and Aren’t)
The New York Times: OUR senses appear to show us the world the way it truly is, but they are easily deceived. For example, if you listen to a recorded symphony through stereo speakers that are placed exactly right, the orchestra will sound like it’s inside your head. Obviously that isn’t the case. But suppose you completely trusted your senses. You might find yourself asking well-meaning but preposterous scientific questions like “Where in the brain is the woodwinds section located?” A more reasonable approach is not to ask a where question but a how question: How does the brain construct this experience of hearing the orchestra in your head? Read the whole story: The New York Times
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So You Flunked A Racism Test. Now What?
NPR: You're probably at least a little bit racist and sexist and homophobic. Most of us are. Before you get all indignant, try taking one of the popular implicit-association tests. Created by sociologists at Harvard, the University of Washington, and the University of Virginia, they measure people's unconscious prejudice by testing how easy — or difficult — it is for the test-takers to associate words like "good" and "bad" with images of black people versus white people, or "scientist" and "lab" with men versus women.
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At Face Value: Certain Facial Features Inspire Trust
Chief executives with certain facial features are immediately assessed as more trustworthy, and are less likely to be blamed for a company’s financial problems, a study has found.
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Look Into My Pupils: Pupil Mimicry May Lead to Increased Trust
People often mimic each other’s facial expressions without even knowing it, but research shows that they also mimic the size of each other’s pupils.
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The Ordeal That Made Me a Student of Humanity
The Wall Street Journal: In 1984, as a 17-year-old high-school student in Israel, I was a member of a youth movement that focused on study, civic work and preparation for military service. Our graduation ceremonies often featured big fires, intended to dramatize our patriotic fervor. That year, some of our leaders had brought back military supplies to help make the blaze especially intense. One Friday afternoon, as we began putting away these materials, there was an accident. Nobody knows exactly what happened, but a spark must have been struck somewhere. A large magnesium flare—the kind that the Israeli military uses to light up a battlefield—exploded right next to me.
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The Best Screen Time
Slate: BOSTON—The library in Boston’s Haynes Early Education Center is a bright, cheery space filled with well-stocked bookcases, tables ringed by small wooden chairs, art supplies, cushions for story time, and dozens of laminated vocabulary words strung below an oversize paper alphabet. But one of the most important learning tools here is a small gray box lit by a blinking green LED, perched well above kid-height on a yellow wall by the door. It’s the Wi-Fi transponder that brings broadband Internet to the fingertips of about 175 small children—preschool through first grade, mostly from low-income black and Hispanic families.
