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To Savor the Flavor, Perform a Short Ritual First
Birthday celebrations often follow a formula, including off-key singing, making a birthday wish while blowing out candles, and the ceremonial cutting of the birthday cake. New research suggests that this ritual not only makes the
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New Research From Psychological Science
Read about the latest research published in Psychological Science. Time in Perspective Andrei Gorea and Janice Hau Researchers know that the perceived size of an object increases as its perceived distance from an observer increases (Emmert's law) and that the perceived time interval between two consecutively occurring stimuli increases when the distance between them is greater (Kappa effect). What happens when these two perceptual phenomena are induced together? The researchers found that people overestimated the perceived duration of objects moving in a distant plane relative to the perceived duration of the same objects moving in a closer plane.
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Inner Speech Speaks Volumes About the Brain
Whether you’re reading the paper or thinking through your schedule for the day, chances are that you’re hearing yourself speak even if you’re not saying words out loud. This internal speech -- the monologue you “hear” inside your head -- is a ubiquitous but largely unexamined phenomenon. A new study looks at a possible brain mechanism that could explain how we hear this inner voice in the absence of actual sound.
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Early Spatial Reasoning Predicts Later Creativity and Innovation, Especially in STEM Fields
Exceptional spatial ability at age 13 predicts creative and scholarly achievements over 30 years later, according to results from a new longitudinal study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. The study, conducted by psychology researcher David Lubinski and colleagues at Vanderbilt University, provides evidence that early spatial ability -- the skill required to mentally manipulate 2D and 3D objects -- predicts the development of new knowledge, and especially innovation in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) domains, above and beyond more traditional measures of mathematical and verbal ability.
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New Research From Psychological Science
Read about the latest research published in Clinical Psychological Science and Psychological Science. Blair E. Wisco, Denise M. Sloan, and Brian P. Marx Do cognitive emotion-regulation strategies influence the effectiveness of interventions for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD)? Participants with PTSD were assigned to receive a 5-week written exposure therapy (WET) or to a waitlist condition. Before and after the intervention, both groups of participants were assessed for Axis 1 disorders, severity of PTSD symptoms, and use of cognitive emotion-regulation strategies (self-blame, rumination, positive reappraisal, and putting into perspective).
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Buying Behavior Can Be Swayed by Cultural Mindset
There are some combinations that just go well together: Milk and cookies, eggs and bacon, pancakes and maple syrup. But new research reveals that people with individualistic mindsets differ from their collectivist counterparts in ascribing value to those perfect combinations. The collection of new studies, published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, demonstrate that people with collectivist mindsets tend to value the relationships between items more than the particular items themselves.
