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Caminata ayuda a desbloquear la creatividad: estudio
Yahoo: Cuando existe un bloqueo en la creatividad, la mejor solución es salir de la oficina o del sitio donde se encuentra y dar un paseo, aseguró un estudio de la Ross School of Business, de la Universidad de Michigan. La investigación, a cargo de los profesores Jeffrey Sánchez-Burks y Suntae Kim, cuyos resultados aparecen en un artículo de la revista mensual universitaria Michigan Today, indica que la participación en ciertos actos físicos mejora la solución creativa de problemas. Read the whole story: Yahoo
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The bright side of strife? Stress makes you see the upside of difficult situations – but that isn’t always a good thing
The Daily Mail: Stress actually makes us focus on the positive side of difficult situations, a new study has revealed - but that isn't always healthy. Researchers at the University of Southern California found that stressed-out people tend to focus on the 'upside' of choices - but in so doing, they ignore dangerous downsides. In a job interview, for instance, applicants might focus on the increased salary, and ignore downsides such as a long commute. Read the whole story: The Daily Mail
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Easily Pronounced Names May Make People More Likable
Wired: Though it might seem impossible, and certainly inadvisable, to judge a person by their name, a new study suggests our brains try anyway. The more pronounceable a person’s name is, the more likely people are to favor them. “When we can process a piece of information more easily, when it’s easier to comprehend, we come to like it more,” said psychologist Adam Alter of New York University and co-author of a Journal of Experimental Social Psychology study published in December. Fluency, the idea that the brain favors information that’s easy to use, dates back to the 1960s, when researchers found that people most liked images of Chinese characters if they’d seen them many times before.
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Optogenetics: Stranger Than Fiction
It sounds like a science fiction movie: Scientists integrate the photoreceptive properties of light-sensitive algae into rat neurons. The result? A rat whose brain can be controlled by light. As crazy as it seems, this isn’t science fiction: The field of optogenetics is scientific reality. In a May 2011 talk at the TED Conference, Edward Boyden explained that optogenetics allows scientists to target specific neurons quickly; conventional methods like drugs take longer to kick in. Boyden is also featured in a March Observer article on optogenetics, and he will be speaking in a webinar called Optogenetics in Neurons and Beyond on March 15, 2012.
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When My Eyes Serve My Stomach
Our senses aren’t just delivering a strict view of what’s going on in the world; they’re affected by what’s going on in our heads. A new study finds that hungry people see food-related words more clearly than people who’ve just eaten. The study, published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, finds that this change in vision happens at the earliest, perceptual stages, before higher parts of the brain have a chance to change the messages coming from the eyes. Psychologists have known for decades that what’s going on inside our head affects our senses.
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Placebo Power
APS Fellow and Charter Member Irving Kirsch, associate director of the Placebo Studies Program at Harvard Medical School, says the difference between the effect of a placebo and the effect of an antidepressant is minimal for most people. "People get better when they take the drug, but it's not the chemical ingredients of the drugs that are making them better," Kirsch told Lesley Stael in a 60 Minutes interview, "it's largely the placebo effect." The "placebo effect" may not be all in your head says Kirsch in the interview below: Kirsch, I., Deacon, B.J., Huedo-Medina, T.B., Scoboria, A., Moore, T.J., & Johnson, B.T. (2008).
