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Did You Ever Wonder Whether Rats Laugh?
Scientific American: Jaak Panksepp of Washington State University woke up one morning and told his students: “let’s go tickle some rats.” Panksepp wondered whether the rat chirps his laboratory had been studying were actually a form of animal laughter. Panksepp recounts what he found in this video and in an account of his work by Jesse Bering in a chapter from Bering’s new book Why Is the Penis Shaped Like That? . . . And Other Reflections on Being Human, published this year by Scientific American/Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Read the whole story: Scientific American
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To Think Outside the Box, It Helps to Have a Box
Bloomberg Business Week: Literally following metaphors of creative thinking—actually sitting “outside the box” to complete word tasks, for example—enhances creative problem-solving, according to a recent study by the University of Michigan Ross School of Business professors Jeffrey Sanchez-Burks and Suntae Kim. To draw these conclusions, they assembled a team of international researchers who conducted five studies with nearly 400 college students who literally followed metaphors. Participants, for instance, generated ideas while first holding out their left hand and then their right hand to test “on the one hand, then on the other hand.” Read the whole story: Bloomberg Business Week
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European Association of Work and Organizational Psychology
The 16th congress of the European Association of Work and Organizational Psychology (EAWOP 2013) will be held May 22nd – 25th, 2013 in Münster, Germany. For more information visit: www.eawop2013.org
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Thirtysomethings flex their number sense
ScienceNews: Even 6-month-old babies can rapidly estimate approximate numbers of items without counting. But surprisingly, an apparently inborn sense for numbers doesn’t top out until around age 30. Number sense precision gradually declines after that, generally falling to preteen levels by about age 70, say psychologist Justin Halberda of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and his colleagues. They report the findings, based on Internet testing of more than 10,000 volunteers ages 11 to 85, online the week of June 25 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
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Why We Lie, Go to Prison and Eat Cake: 10 Questions With Dan Ariely
Wired: A professor of behavioral economics and psychology at Duke University, Ariely is the author of Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces that Shape Our Decisions, and The Upside of Irrationality: The Unexpected Benefits of Defying Logic, both New York Times bestsellers. Ariely’s new book, The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty, explores some of the surprising reasons we lie to each other, and ourselves. Raised in Israel, Ariely holds Ph.D.s in both business administration and psychology. Wired senior editor Joanna Pearlstein spoke with Ariely as part of the Live Talks Business Forums series at the City Club of Los Angeles.
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Children As Eyewitnesses
Would you believe a child witness? When Gail Goodman first posed this question in 1981, she found that most judges and juries didn’t have an answer, so she conducted much of the early research in the now robust fields of child memory and children as eyewitnesses. She showed that many children are quite capable of accurately recounting witnessed events, but that their accuracy is strongly affected by factors like the type of questions asked and the amount of intimidation or comfort the child experiences while being interviewed.
