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Studying Human-Computer Interaction at Microsoft Research
Science Magazine: At most scientific conferences, almost every nametag you see dangling from people's necks shows a university title. But this wasn't the case for many people wandering the halls last month at the annual meeting of the Association for Psychological Science (APS). Many of those tags featured names like Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and other tech giants. It’s a sign of the times: Social scientists are getting snatched up by tech companies. Mary Czerwinski is a cognitive psychologist based at Microsoft Research (MSR) in Redmond, Washington. Czerwinski earned a Ph.D.
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The Fault in Our Stars
The Wall Street Journal: World Cup fans, take note: If your team loses, the problem may be too much talent. Of course, teams benefit from great players. Still, a new study from researchers on both sides of the Atlantic finds that in team-oriented sports like soccer and basketball, too many stars on one team can hurt performance by impairing teamwork. But in baseball—with its emphasis on individual performance by batters, pitchers and fielders—the more stars, the better. The study, by social scientists at Columbia University, France's Insead business school and Amsterdam's VU University, analyzed data from all three sports to tease out the connections among star talent, teamwork and success.
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Want to Succeed in Business? Then Play High School Sports
Fortune Magazine: New research finds teenage athletes are more likely to land plum jobs later in life. Those dumb jocks may not be so dumb after all. Two new studies found that past participation in high school sports helps youngsters develop a host of crucial skills which give them a leg up as they enter the work world and achieve success for decades afterward. Appearing in the Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies this week, Cornell’s Kevin Kniffin and two other colleagues found that teenagers who played sports developed stronger leadership skills, worked better in teams and demonstrated more confidence. Read the whole story: Fortune Magazine
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Relevant? Nurturing? Well, So’s Your Old Man
The New York Times: When our young daughters first decided to play on top of our Honda minivan, parked in our driveway, my wife was worried. But to me, it seemed no less safe than chasing a ball that frequently ended up in the street. And they loved the height, the novelty, the danger. So I let them stay. They never fell. And with the summer weather here, playing on the car is once again keeping them occupied for hours. Now that I have read Paul Raeburn’s “Do Fathers Matter?,” I know that my comfort with more dangerous play — my willingness to let my daughters stand on top of a minivan — is a typically paternal trait. Dads roughhouse with children more, too.
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Our Moral Tongue
The New York Times: ON June 20, 2003, employees of the Union Pacific Railroad faced a difficult decision as a runaway train headed toward downtown Los Angeles: Should they divert the train to a side track, knowing it would derail and hit homes in the less populated city of Commerce, Calif.? Did the moral imperative to minimize overall harm outweigh the moral imperative not to intentionally harm an innocent suburb? They chose to divert the train, which injured 13 people, including three children who were sent to the hospital. Read the whole story: The New York Times
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Daydreaming: The Other Kind of Distracted Driving
For many, the term “distracted driving” conjures up a familiar image: a motorist talking or texting on a cell phone instead of paying attention to the surrounding traffic and road conditions. The dangers of phoning or texting while driving are so evident that 13 American states have passed laws banning use of handheld devices while driving. But can distracted driving also be caused by internal factors? Psychological scientists Matthew R. Yanko and Thomas M. Spalek of Simon Fraser University in British Columbia wanted to gauge whether simple “mind-wandering,” thinking about anything but the task at hand, would distract drivers the same way portable gadgets do.
