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Humans Get the Gist of Complex Sounds
When faced with many different sounds, such as notes in a violin melody, the brain quickly summarizes individual pitches to get an overall gist of what is being heard.
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Voice-Activated Technology Is Called Safety Risk for Drivers
The New York Times: As concerns have intensified about driver distraction from electronic gadgets, automakers have increasingly introduced voice-activated systems that allow drivers to keep their hands on the wheel and eyes on the road. But a new study says that the most advanced of these systems actually create a different, and worse, safety risk, by taking a driver’s mind, if not eyes, off the road. These systems let drivers use voice commands to dictate a text, send an e-mail and even update a Facebook page. Automakers say the systems not only address safety concerns, but also cater to consumers who increasingly want to stay connected on the Internet while driving.
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Marriages among those who met online are as stable as others, study says
The Washington Post: Millions of people first met their spouses through online dating. How have those marriages fared compared with those of people who met in more traditional venues? Pretty well, according to a new study. A survey of nearly 20,000 Americans reveals that marriages between people who met online are at least as stable and satisfying as those of couples who first met in the real world —possibly more so. John Cacioppo, a psychologist at the University of Chicago, wondered how online dating has changed American family life. A scientific adviser to eHarmony.com, one of the largest online dating sites, Cacioppo arranged for the company to pay for an online survey.
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Blood vessels in eye linked with IQ
Zee News: The width of blood vessels in the retina can be a biomarker for brain health, a new study has suggested. Research shows that younger people who score low on intelligence tests, such as IQ, tend to be at higher risk for poorer health and shorter lifespan, but factors like socioeconomic status and health behaviors don`t fully account for the relationship Psychological scientist Idan Shalev of Duke University and colleagues wondered whether intelligence might serve as a marker indicating the health of the brain, and specifically the health of the system of blood vessels that provides oxygen and nutrients to the brain. Read the whole story: Zee News
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8 New Ways of Looking at Intelligence
TIME: The science of learning is a relatively new discipline born of an agglomeration of fields: cognitive science, psychology, philosophy, neuroscience. As with anything to do with our idiosyncratic and unpredictable species, there is still a lot of art, especially in teaching. But the science of learning can offer some surprising new perspectives. ... Beliefs can make us smarter. This is an offshoot of #1. Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck distinguishes two types of mindsets: the fixed mindset, or the belief that ability is fixed and unchanging, and the growth mindset, or the belief that abilities can be developed through learning and practice.
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Apes, toddler show that language may have evolved from gestures
Los Angeles Times: What do a chimpanzee, a bonobo and a toddler all have in common? They all use gestures to communicate. By studying hours of video of a female chimp named Panpanzee, a female bonobo named Panbanisha and a little girl with the initials GN, a team of psychologists hope to gain some insight into how spoken language evolved in humans. Skeletons can be fossilized, but language cannot, the researchers noted in a study published this week in Frontiers in Psychology. To figure out how it came to be, they looked for similarities between the three closely related species to infer ways that our common ancestor would have communicated more than 5 million years ago.
