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Exploring the Dynamic Interaction Between Genes, Environment and the Brain
A Symposium on Epigenetics at the 3rd Scientific Meeting of the ESN 8 September 2011 in Basel, Switzerland Cosponsored by the Association for Psychological Science and the Federation of the European Societies of Neuropsychology With modern advances in a number of scientific disciplines, we have moved from looking at genetic versus environmental factors to looking at the interplay between these factors in understanding individual differences in behavior. In the process of development, the expression of genes is shaped by environmental experience, producing stable changes in individual characteristics that can persist within and across generations.
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Can Aptitude Tests Really Predict Your Performance?
Colleges, employers, and the military all use aptitude tests to predict how well someone might do. In recent years, some critics of these tests have said there isn’t much difference in performance above a certain level—that, above a certain threshold, everyone is more or less the same. Now, in a new study, which will be published in an upcoming issue of Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, the authors find that this isn’t true. Instead, the higher your score, the better you perform later. But some critics have said that the tests aren’t much use at the top end of the scale.
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Imagination Can Influence Perception
Imagining something with our mind’s eye is a task we engage in frequently, whether we’re daydreaming, conjuring up the face of a childhood friend, or trying to figure out exactly where we might have parked the car. But how can we tell whether our own mental images are accurate or vivid when we have no direct comparison? That is, how do we come to know and judge the contents of our own minds? Mental imagery is typically thought to be a private phenomenon, which makes it difficult to test people’s metacognition of – or knowledge about –their own mental imagery.
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Income Disparities May Be Making Americans Unhappy
U.S. News and World Report: THURSDAY, June 16 -- The growing gap between the richest Americans and everyone else is making many people with middle and low incomes unhappy, researchers have found. "Income disparity has grown a lot in the U.S., especially since the 1980s," study author Shigehiro Oishi, a psychologist at the University of Virginia, said in news release from the Association for Psychological Science. "With that, we've seen a marked drop in life satisfaction and happiness" among the 60 percent of Americans with low- and middle-class incomes, Oishi noted. Read the whole story: U.S. News and World Report
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To Feel Full Faster, Pretend You’re Eating Junk Food
LiveScience: WASHINGTON — Brainpower is more important in dieting than scientists realized — not just in battling cravings but in physically changing the body's reaction to the intake of food, according to a new study. Whether or not we consider a food to be healthy has a big impact on a protein our bodies release to control metabolism and appetite, a researcher discovered. Participants who thought they were drinking a calorie-packed shake showed much greater and quicker spikes in a gut hormone, making them feel full faster, than those who were drinking what they thought was something healthier.
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Power Players
Slate: Anthony Weiner's extramarital sexting, Arnold Schwarzenegger's love child, and the Dominique Strauss-Kahn scandal has led to a lot of handwringing about the prevalence of philandering among politicians and to speculation about why politicians risk their families and their careers to cheat. Is it possible that politicians are more prone to infidelity than the rest of us? Read more: Slate
