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Infants’ Brain Activity Shows Signs of Social Thinking
An innovative collaboration between neuroscientists and developmental psychologists that investigated how infants' brains process other people's action provides evidence directly linking neural responses from the motor system to overt social behavior in infants. The research is published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. The study involved thirty-six 7-month-old infants, who were each tested while wearing a cap that used electroencephalography (EEG) to measure brain activity. During the experiment, each infant observed an actor reach for one of two toys. Immediately after, the baby was allowed to select one of the same toys.
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New Research From Clinical Psychological Science
Read about the latest research published in Clinical Psychological Science: Engaging With the Wrong People: The Basis of Selective Attention to Negative Faces in Social Anxiety Ben Grafton and Colin MacLeod Studies examining attentional bias toward negative social information -- a vulnerability factor for social anxiety -- have yielded inconsistent results. This is perhaps because attentional bias can be produced by enhanced engagement with negative stimuli or problems disengaging from threatening stimuli. Previous studies have failed to adequately distinguish between the two.
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Curiosity Leads Us to Seek Out Unpleasant, Even Painful, Outcomes
Curiosity is a powerful motivator, leading us to make important discoveries and explore the unknown. But new research shows that our curiosity is sometimes so powerful that it leads us to choose potentially painful and unpleasant outcomes that have no apparent benefits, even when we have the ability to avoid these outcomes altogether. The findings are published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.
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Spending That Fits Personality Can Boost Well-Being
Money could buy happiness if your purchases fit your personality, a study shows.
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Speaking Two Languages for the Price of One
In everyday conversation, bilingual speakers often switch between languages mid-sentence with apparent ease, despite the fact that many studies suggest that language-switching should slow them down. New research suggests that consistency may allow bilingual speakers to avoid the costs that come with switching between languages, essentially allowing them to use two languages for the price of one. The research is published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.
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New Research From Psychological Science
Read about the latest research published in Psychological Science: The Brain's Tendency to Bind Audiovisual Signals Is Stable but Not General Brian Odegaard and Ladan Shams Studies have found that there is quite a bit of variability in the way people integrate information from different sensory modalities; however, little is known about the mechanism responsible for this between-person variability. Participants completed a temporal-numerosity judgment task in which they had to count the number of beeps and the number of flashes that were presented and a spatial localization task in which they had to localize auditory, visual, or audiovisual stimuli.
