-
Why Babies Love (And Learn From) Magic Tricks
NPR: To survive, we humans need to be able to do a handful of things: breathe, of course. And drink and eat. Those are obvious. We're going to focus now on a less obvious — but no less vital — human function: learning. Because new research out today in the journal Science sheds light on the very building blocks of learning. Imagine an 11-month-old sitting in a high chair opposite a small stage where you might expect, say, a puppet show. Except this is a lab at Johns Hopkins University. Instead of a puppeteer, a researcher is rolling a red and blue striped ball down a ramp, toward a little wall at the bottom.
-
How Children Develop the Idea of Free Will
The Wall Street Journal: We believe deeply in our own free will. I decide to walk through the doorway and I do, as simple as that. But from a scientific point of view, free will is extremely puzzling. For science, what we do results from the causal chain of events in our brains and minds. Where does free will fit in? But if free will doesn’t exist, why do we believe so strongly that it does? Where does that belief come from? In a new study in the journal Cognition, my colleagues and I tried to find out by looking at what children think about free will. When and how do our ideas about freedom develop? Philosophers point out that there are different versions of free will.
-
Shakespeare’s Plays Reveal His Psychological Signature
Shakespeare is such a towering literary figure that any new insight into the man, or his work, tends to generate a jolt of excitement in academic and non-academic communities of Shakespeare aficionados. Applying psychological theory and text-analyzing software, researchers at the University of Texas at Austin have discovered a unique psychological profile that characterizes Shakespeare’s established works, and this profile strongly identifies Shakespeare as an author of the long-contested play Double Falsehood. The findings are published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.
-
Study: Your Voice Is The Secret To Getting Hired
Forbes: If you want the job, you better speak up: Your voice carries a personal power that assures people of your intelligence and competence in a way that mere written words can’t. A new study by University of Chicago Booth School of Business researchers, to be published by the Journal of Psychological Science, found that job candidates were more likely to be hired if they make their pitch using their voice rather than text. ... The Booth School researchers, Professor Nicholas Epley and Ph.D. candidate Juliana Schroeder, asked recruiters and hypothetical employers to rate candidates on their qualifications.
-
Negative Emotional Cues Send Drivers to Distraction
Driver distraction is one of the leading causes of motor vehicle accidents. In 2013 alone, 3,154 people were killed in motor vehicle crashes involving distracted drivers, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation. Obvious distractions, like talking on a cell phone, can contribute to accidents by physically diverting a driver’s attention away from the road. But scientists are finding that more subtle emotional cues in our environment can also have a potentially dangerous influence on attention and, ultimately, our driving behavior.
-
Tweeners Trust Peers More Than Adults When Judging Risks
NPR: If you are the parent of a preteen, you are all too aware that they suddenly seem to value the opinions of their peers far more than yours. The good news, if there is any, is that you're not alone. Young teenagers ages 12 to 14 are more influenced by their peers' opinions than they are by adults', a study finds. That's true only for that age group, not for older teens, children or adults. Researchers asked 563 people visiting the London Science Museum to rate the riskiness of activities like crossing the street on a red light, biking without a helmet, or bungee jumping. The study was published last week in Psychological Science. Read the whole story: NPR
