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Seeing and Perceiving
Considered one of the world’s most influential cognitive psychologists, Anne Treisman developed a classic psychological model of human visual attention. The feature integration theory of attention proposes a two-stage model for our perception of objects. The pre-attentive phase occurs automatically, before conscious awareness. In this stage, her research suggests, we register the elementary features of a visual stimulus, before our minds have grouped those features or bound them to an object. In the second phase, called the focused attention stage, we combine the features to perceive the specific object.
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Smoking Up Behind the Wheel Linked to Risky Driving While Sober
Driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol has been tied in previous studies to other dangerous driving behaviors, like speeding and dangerous overtaking, but research investigating the relationship between cannabis and risk of car accidents has produced contradictory results. Psychological scientists Isabelle Richer and Jacques Bergeron of the University of Montreal looked at whether those who drive while under the influence of cannabis are more likely to engage in risky and aggressive driving behaviors in general. An all-male group of 75 participants was given a questionnaire asking about their driving habits, cannabis use, and history of car accidents.
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One question reveals: Are you a narcissist?
USA TODAY: If you are a narcissist, you probably think this story is about you, and you are correct (as you so often are – right?). That kind of thinking makes it quite easy for researchers to identify the most self-involved among us: They just ask people if they are narcissists. The real narcissists speak right up, a new study shows. "People who are not narcissists would never say that they are," because of the negative traits – such as vanity and selfishness – associated with the word, says Sara Konrath, a researcher at Indiana University in Indianapolis and, until recently, the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor.
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A New Reason to Get More Sleep
Inc.: You probably already know that missing sleep is bad for productivity. Maybe you've also heard that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention call lack of sleep a public epidemic and links it to industrial disasters and chronic diseases such as obesity and diabetes. But it gets worse. A new study suggests it may damage your memory, too. That's according to researchers at Michigan State University and the University of California, Irvine, who found participants deprived of sleep were more likely to stumble over the details of a simulated burglary they were shown in a series of images.
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People Who Feel They Have A Purpose In Life Live Longer
NPR: We know that happiness and social connection can have positive benefits on health. Now research suggests that having a sense of purpose or direction in life may also be beneficial. To find out if having a sense of purpose has an effect on aging and adult development, Patrick Hill, an assistant professor of psychology at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada, looked at data from the Midlife in the United States (MIDUS) study, which is funded by the National Institute on Aging.
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Warmer Parenting Makes Antisocial Toddlers More Empathetic
Pacific Standard: When parents act warmly and responsively toward young children who exhibit antisocial behavior, the children begin acting more warmly too. That’s according to a new study in the Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology, in which researchers examined whether there are differences in response to parental harshness and warmth among three-year-olds who exhibit “callously unemotional” behavior. To parents of little ones, this outcome might seem obvious, but the study’s results contradicted the prevailing thinking on the matter.
