-
Pump Up The Bass, Feel Like A Boss
NPR: Jump-up songs make us feel capable and powerful. Athletes know that intuitively — batters swagger out to raucous walk-up songs, stars like Serena Williams and Lebron James warm up with headphones on (except when, in James's case, the headphones come off to blast Wu-Tang Clan in the locker room). But what is it about a good pump-up song that makes us feel invincible? According to a new study, the answer is in the bass. Read the whole story: NPR
-
Introspective or Narcissistic?
The New York Times: Some people like to keep a journal. Some people think it’s a bad idea. People who keep a journal often see it as part of the process of self-understanding and personal growth. They don’t want insights and events to slip through their minds. They think with their fingers and have to write to process experiences and become aware of their feelings. People who oppose journal-keeping fear it contributes to self-absorption and narcissism. C.S. Lewis, who kept a journal at times, feared that it just aggravated sadness and reinforced neurosis. Gen.
-
Visual ‘Gist’ Helps Us Figure Out Where a Crowd Is Looking
Have you ever seen a crowd of people looking off into the distance, perhaps toward a passing biker or up to the top of a building? There’s a good chance you looked there, too, instantly, even without paying attention to the individuals in the group. How can we tell where a crowd is looking with so little effort? Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley and the University of Denver have discovered that we rely on a specialized visual process known as “ensemble coding” to perceive where a crowd is looking.
-
Why Not a Three-Day Week?
The New Yorker: In 1930, John Maynard Keynes posed a question about the economic future of society: “What can we reasonably expect the level of our economic life to be, a hundred years hence? What are the economic possibilities for our grandchildren?” To Keynes, the answer was clear: the rapid accumulation of capital, combined with technological advances, had already, by his estimates, improved the average quality of life in the West fourfold since the Industrial Revolution, and there was no reason why that trend shouldn’t continue.
-
Playing Video Games Can Help Or Hurt, Depending On Whom You Ask
NPR: Parents worry that video games are bad for kids, but the evidence on how and why they may be harmful has been confusing. "Most of popular media puts the most emphasis of concern on aggression," says psychologist Jay Hull from Dartmouth College. "But aggression is just the tip of the iceberg." So Hull looked at other negative behaviors that could be affected by gaming, including binge drinking, smoking cigarettes and unprotected sex. His study found that teenagers who regularly play violent video games such as Manhunt and the Grand Theft Auto series are more likely to take those risks. The study was published Monday in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
-
To Work Better, Work Less
The Atlantic: Between 1853 and 1870, Baron Haussmann ordered much of Paris to be destroyed. Slums were razed and converted to bourgeois neighborhoods, and the formerly labyrinthine city became a place of order, full of wide boulevards (think Saint-Germain) and angular avenues (the Champs-Élysées). Poor Parisians tried to put up a fight but were eventually forced to flee, their homes knocked down with minimal notice and little or no recompense. The city underwent a full transformation—from working class and medieval to bourgeois and modern—in less than two decades' time. Every August, Paris now sees another rapid transformation. Tourists rule the picturesque streets. Shops are shuttered.
