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New Research From Psychological Science
Read about the latest research published in Psychological Science. Object-Based Attention Without Awareness Liam J. Norman, Charles A. Heywood, and Robert W. Kentridge Attentional selection can facilitate the processing of basic properties of unseen stimuli; however, it is still unknown whether this selection extends to more complex properties of stimuli. Participants performed a task in which a cue appeared inside one of two rectangles that were masked from their conscious attention. After the cue, a target appeared in one of the masked rectangles. Participants processed targets appearing within the same rectangle as the cue more rapidly than they processed targets in the other rectangle.
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Social Connections Drive the ‘Upward Spiral’ of Positive Emotions and Health
People who experience warmer, more upbeat emotions may have better physical health because they make more social connections, according to a new study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. The research, led by Barbara Fredrickson of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Bethany Kok of the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences also found it is possible for a person to self-generate positive emotions in ways that make him or her physically healthier. “People tend to liken their emotions to the weather, viewing them as uncontrollable,” says Fredrickson.
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Early Math and Reading Ability Linked to Job and Income in Adulthood
Math and reading ability at age 7 are linked with socioeconomic status several decades later, over and above associations with intelligence, education, and childhood socioeconomic status.
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Older Adults’ Memory Lapses Linked to Problems Processing Everyday Events
Some memory problems common to older adults may stem from an inability to segment daily life into discrete experiences, according to a new study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. The study suggests that problems processing everyday events may be the result of age-related atrophy to a part of the brain called the medial temporal lobe (MTL). “When you think back on what you did yesterday, you don’t just press ‘play’ and watch a continuous stream of 24 hours,” says psychological scientist Heather Bailey of Washington University in St. Louis, who led the study.
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Weight Gain Linked With Personality Trait Changes
People who gain weight are more likely to give in to temptations but also are more thoughtful about their actions, according to a new study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. To understand how fluctuations in body weight might relate to personality changes, psychological scientist Angelina Sutin of the Florida State University College of Medicine and colleagues at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) examined data from two large-scale longitudinal studies of Baltimore residents. “We know a great deal about how personality traits contribute to weight gain,” said Sutin.
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New Research From Psychological Science
Read about the latest research published in Psychological Science. The Curse of Planning: Dissecting Multiple Reinforcement-Learning Systems by Taxing the Central Executive A. Ross Otto, Samuel J. Gershman, Arthur B. Markman, and Nathaniel D. Daw Under what conditions do individuals rely on model-based rather than model-free reinforcement-learning systems? The researchers had participants complete a multistep choice paradigm. On some trials, participants had to simultaneously perform a secondary task designed to tax working memory resources.
