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What Makes a Face Look Alive? Study Says It’s in the Eyes
The face of a doll is clearly not human; the face of a human clearly is. Telling the difference allows us to pay attention to faces that belong to living things, which are capable of interacting with us. But where is the line at which a face appears to be alive? A new study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, finds that a face has to be quite similar to a human face in order to appear alive, and that the cues are mainly in the eyes. Several movies have tried and failed to generate lifelike animations of humans.
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Teacher Effort is Linked to Difficult Students’ Inherited Traits
Challenging students take up more of their teachers' time—and the difference between a tougher student and an easier one appears to be genetic, according to a new study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. The study looked at young twins in the U.K. and asked their teachers how much of a handful they are. "Policy-wise, there's a lot going on, blaming teachers for what's going on in the classrooms," says Renate Houts of Duke University, who cowrote the study with Avshalom Caspi and Terrie E. Moffitt of Duke, Robert C. Pianta of the University of Virginia, and Louise Arseneault of King's College London.
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A Positive Mood Allows Your Brain to Think More Creatively
People who watch funny videos on the internet at work aren't necessarily wasting time. They may be taking advantage of the latest psychological science—putting themselves in a good mood so they can think more creatively. "Generally, positive mood has been found to enhance creative problem solving and flexible yet careful thinking," says Ruby Nadler, a graduate student at the University of Western Ontario. She and colleagues Rahel Rabi and John Paul Minda carried out a new study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. For this study, Nadler and her colleagues looked at a particular kind of learning that is improved by creative thinking.
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People Who Believe in Justice Also See a Victim’s Life As More Meaningful After Tragedy
Seeing bad things happen to other people is scary. One way to respond to this is to blame the victim—to look for some reason why it happened to them. But there's another common response, according to a new study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. The researchers found that people who believe in justice in the world also believe that a tragedy gives the victim's life more meaning. "A lot of the time when people see someone else suffering, and helping them isn’t an option, people will instead justify the fact that something is negative is happening to them.
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Special Section on Stigma in Perspectives on Psychological Science: Group Differences, Not Deficits
Psychological scientists are faced with the arduous task of identifying distinctions between humans without stigmatizing groups of people based on these differences. In this special section of Perspectives on Psychological Science, experts present reasons for why differences in gender, race, sexual orientation, and culture should not be framed as deficits within the field of psychology. Stigma From Psychological Science: Group Differences, Not Deficits—Introduction to Stigma Special Section Morton Ann Gernsbacher Stigma occurs when individuals are devalued by others for having a different trait or attributes.
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So much to do! And so little time!
The Christmas season is a hectic time for many people. There are all those cards to write and mail, presents to buy and wrap and deliver, perhaps a tree to haul home and trim, plus extra baking and cooking for family and friends. Few of these are leisure activities. Indeed, most holiday tasks are extremely time-pressured, with rigid deadlines. It always seems that time is way too short to get it all done. But is this perception true? Are these deadlines really looming, or do we in fact have more time than we imagine?
