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To children (but not adults) a rose by any other name is still a rose
Two vital parts of mentally organizing the world are classification, or the understanding that similar things belong in the same category; and induction, an educated guess about a thing’s properties if it’s in a certain category. There are reasons to believe that language greatly assists adults in both kinds of tasks. But how do young children use language to make sense of the things around them? It’s a longstanding debate among psychologists. A new study in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, challenges the predominant answer.
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I feel powerful — and so tall!
The Boston Globe: Power makes you feel tall. Growing up, children learn to associate tallness with power, and, among adults, we tend to assign power to those who are tall. But does this association also go the other way? Apparently it does: A new study finds that power makes people feel taller. After writing about an experience in which they had power over someone else, people significantly overestimated their height relative to a taller pole and created taller avatars to represent themselves in a computer game. Likewise, people significantly over-reported their height after being randomly assigned to be a manager (vs. employee) in a business exercise. Read the whole story: The Boston Globe
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Thinking About Mortality Changes How We Act
Scientific American: The thought of shuffling off our mortal coil can make all of us a little squeamish. But avoiding the idea of death entirely means ignoring the role it can play in determining our actions. Consider the following scenario: You’re visiting a friend who lives on the 20th floor of an old inner-city apartment building. It’s the middle of the night when you are suddenly awakened from a deep sleep by the sound of screams and the choking smell of smoke. You reach over to the nightstand and turn on the light. You are shocked to find the room filling fast with thick clouds of smoke. You run to the door and reach for the handle.
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Neuroscience Explains Why the Grinch Stole Christmas
Forbes: “You’re a mean one, Mr. Grinch.” But why? We all know Dr. Seuss’s iconic tale of the green ogre who lives on a mountain, seething while the Whos in the village below celebrate Christmas. The happier they are, the angrier he gets, until finally he can’t take it anymore and hatches a plan to crush their joy like a glass ornament. Dr. Seuss was a brilliant intuitive psychologist and I’d have loved to chat with him about the core of the Grinch’s rage, but, alas, he left us too early. So I’m turning to another impressive thinker who has taught me a great deal about the neurobiology of emotion: Dr.
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‘Baby brain’ syndrome IS real… and it makes you a better mother
Daily Mail: Pregnant women have long complained that their condition makes them forgetful. Now a researcher has claimed there may be scientific truth in this ‘baby brain’ syndrome – and that there is a very good reason why expectant mothers develop short-term memory loss. The suggestion is that women’s brains change during pregnancy so that they will be better able to concentrate on their newborn’s needs after the birth, with the result that they become less focused on other things, such as where the car keys might be.
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You do the math — because that pigeon over there can
msnbc: Pigeons may not be so bird-brained after all, as scientists have found the birds' ability to understand numbers is on par with that of primates. Previous studies have shown that various animals, from honeybees to chimpanzees, can learn to count when trained with food rewards. In 1998, researchers discovered that rhesus monkeys can not only learn to count to four, but can also pick up on numerical rules and apply them to numbers they haven't seen before, allowing them to count up to nine without further training.
