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Your brain sees things that you don’t
PBS: Your brain saw something in the black and white image above, even if you didn't. According to a study published this week in the online journal Psychological Science, the brain processes and understands visual input, even if we are unaware of it. Jay Sanguinetti, a doctoral candidate at the University of Arizona, showed study participants black and white silhouettes. Some were just shapes, but a few images were outlines of real objects, like the seahorses in the image above. He monitored their brains with an electroencephalogram -- which looks like a swimming cap with wires. They were shown the pictures for 170 milliseconds, which is less than a quarter of a second.
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Scholarly reflections on the ‘selfie’
Oxford University Press Blog: When Oxford Dictionaries chose ‘selfie’ as their Word of the Year 2013, we invited several scholars from different fields to share their thoughts on this emerging phenomenon. “Theory of mind may be foremost among the factors that set people apart from other species. Yet, to know that others have a mind (full of beliefs, expectations, emotions, perceptions — some the same and some different from one’s own) is not enough to be really successful as the social animal.
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Too Aware? The Downside of Mindfulness Revealed
LiveScience: "Mindfulness" is the watchword of gurus and lifestyle coaches everywhere. But too much awareness could prevent the formation of good habits, new research suggests. People high in mindfulness — a state of active attention to what's going on in the present moment — are worse at automatic learning, according to the study, which is being presented today (Nov. 12) at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience in San Diego. Automatic processes lead to the formation of habits — both good and bad, said study researcher Chelsea Stillman, a doctoral student in psychology at the Georgetown University Center for Brain Plasticity and Recovery. ...
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Among U.S. presidents, LBJ tops charts in ‘grandiose narcissism’ study
Houston Chronicle: In a recent study of U.S. presidents' personality traits, Lyndon Johnson ranked highest in grandiose narcissism. While it frequently gets a bad rap, grandiose narcissism may predict both positive and negative leadership behaviors, according to a group of researchers who published a paper in October in Psychological Science. Grandiose narcissism, which is characterized by an extroverted, flamboyant style, is distinct from vulnerable narcissism, which is more associated with emotional sensitivity and vulnerability. The paper, titled "The Double-Edged Sword of Grandiose Narcissism: Implications for Successful and Unsuccessful Leadership Among U.S.
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You’re So Self-Controlling
The New York Times: WHAT do you do if, when you get to a subway platform, you see that it is already packed with people? Do you join the throngs to wait for the train, or do you shake your head and seek an alternative way to get where you’re going? If you go the first route, you probably think that the crowd means there must not have been a train for some time and that one is imminent. If you choose the second, you’ve come to the opposite conclusion: It’s crowded, a train hasn’t come in a while, so it’s likely there’s some sort of problem — and who knows how long you’ll end up waiting. Better cut your losses and split.
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Dan Ariely On Why We’re All A Little Dishonest – And What To Do About It
Forbes: In a fast-moving, complex society, you simply can’t master every task. But when you pay people for advice – whether they’re your doctor, your mechanic, or your financial adviser – you need to be able to trust what they’re saying. “As we become more interdependent and more specialized,” says Dan Ariely, author of The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty, “trust becomes more valuable.” ... “The good news is most people are not psychopaths,” says Ariely, a professor at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business (where I also teach).
