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What Scientists Know—And Don’t Know—About Sexual Orientation
A comprehensive review of sexual orientation research aims to correct important misconceptions about the link between scientific findings and political agendas.
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New Research From Psychological Science
Read about the latest research published in Psychological Science: Limits of Executive Control: Sequential Effects in Predictable Environments Frederick Verbruggen, Amy McAndrew, Gabrielle Weidemann, Tobias Stevens, and Ian P. L. McLaren Studies have shown that bottom-up processes modulate performance in unpredictable environments, but is this also true in predictable environments? Participants completed a go/no-go task in which the trials alternated predictably. Before seeing each stimulus, participants had to rate the extent to which they thought the go or no-go stimulus would appear.
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Fewer Romantic Prospects May Lead to Riskier Investments
Encountering information suggesting that it may be tough to find a romantic partner shifts people’s decision making toward riskier options, according to new findings from a series of studies published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. “Environmental cues indicating that one will have a relatively difficult time finding a mate can drive people to concentrate their investment choices into a few high-risk, high-return options,” says psychological scientist Joshua Ackerman of the University of Michigan, lead author on the research.
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New Research From Psychological Science
Read about the latest research published in Psychological Science: Infections and Elections: Did an Ebola Outbreak Influence the 2014 U.S. Federal Elections (and if so, How)? Alec T. Beall, Marlise K. Hofer, and Mark Schaller Did the Ebola outbreak influence the 2014 U.S. federal elections? In the second of three studies, the researchers analyzed state-specific preferences for Republican and Democratic candidates before and after the Ebola outbreak for 32 U.S. Senate elections held in 2014. They also examined the degree to which voters in each state typically favor Republican or Democratic candidates and the internet search volume for information related to Ebola.
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Brain Repurposes Itself to Learn Scientific Concepts
The human brain was initially used for basic survival tasks, such as staying safe and hunting and gathering. Yet, 200,000 years later the same human brain is able to learn abstract concepts, like momentum, energy and gravity, which have only been formally defined in the last few centuries. New research forthcoming in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, investigates how the brain is able to acquire brand new types of ideas. Scientists at Carnegie Mellon University, Robert Mason and Marcel Just, used neural decoding techniques developed at CMU to identify specific physics concepts that advanced students recalled when prompted.
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Infants’ Brain Activity Shows Signs of Social Thinking
An innovative collaboration between neuroscientists and developmental psychologists that investigated how infants' brains process other people's action provides evidence directly linking neural responses from the motor system to overt social behavior in infants. The research is published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. The study involved thirty-six 7-month-old infants, who were each tested while wearing a cap that used electroencephalography (EEG) to measure brain activity. During the experiment, each infant observed an actor reach for one of two toys. Immediately after, the baby was allowed to select one of the same toys.
