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Maybe Just Drunk Enough to Remember
The New York Times: Drunken recollections, especially in rape trials, rarely play well to jurors. In a society that can be quick to turn a skeptical eye toward women who say they were raped — she was scantily dressed, she’s promiscuous, she’s just angry at him — prosecutors of sex crimes say one of their biggest obstacles in the courtroom is alcohol. A rape trial in Manhattan is the latest example. The accuser, who completed her testimony Monday, admitted that she was so drunk on the night in question that she could not remember most of what happened, even the cab ride home.
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The Hazards of Teamwork: Does Group Study Disrupt Learning?
The classic 1973 film The Paper Chase explores the challenges of first-year law students at Harvard, focusing on a handful who come together to form a study group. These groups are formed to manage the vast amount of learning that 1-L students are expected to absorb, on everything from contracts to property to the Constitution—but in this case the collaboration is a disaster. A combination of stress and competitiveness and pettiness sabotages the group effort, leaving the individual students on their own as they face the rigors of final exams. Study groups are very popular—and not only in law school.
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How Little Sleep Can You Get Away With?
The New York Times: We all know that we don’t get enough sleep. But how much sleep do we really need? Until about 15 years ago, one common theory was that if you slept at least four or five hours a night, your cognitive performance remained intact; your body simply adapted to less sleep. But that idea was based on studies in which researchers sent sleepy subjects home during the day — where they may have sneaked in naps and downed coffee. nter David Dinges, the head of the Sleep and Chronobiology Laboratory at the Hospital at University of Pennsylvania, who has the distinction of depriving more people of sleep than perhaps anyone in the world.
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Teens — gay or straight — more likely to attempt suicide in conservative towns
MSNBC: Suicide attempts by gay teens — and even straight kids — are more common in politically conservative areas where schools don't have programs supporting gay rights, a study involving nearly 32,000 high school students found. Those factors raised the odds and were a substantial influence on suicide attempts even when known risk contributors like depression and being bullied were considered, said study author Mark Hatzenbuehler, a Columbia University psychologist and researcher. His study found a higher rate of suicide attempts even among kids who weren't bullied or depressed when they lived in counties less supportive of gays and with relatively few Democrats.
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Becoming a Vampire Without Being Bitten. A New Study Shows That Reading Expands Our Self-Concepts.
“We read to know we are not alone,” wrote C.S. Lewis. But how do books make us feel we are not alone? “Obviously, you can’t hold a book’s hand, and a book isn’t going to dry your tears when you’re sad,” says University at Buffalo, SUNY psychologist Shira Gabriel. Yet we feel human connection, without real relationships, through reading. “Something else important must be happening.” In an upcoming study in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, Gabriel and graduate student Ariana Young show what that something is: When we read, we psychologically become part of the community described in the narrative—be they wizards or vampires.
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Can music delay dementia? What new study says
CBS News: Are flats and sharps the keys to mental sharpness? Preliminary research now links music lessons in childhood to greater mental acuity decades down the road. For a study published in the journal Neuropsychology, researchers recruited 70 healthy adults between 60 and 83 years of age and divided them into three groups based upon the extent of their musical background. Those who had studied an instrument or learned how to read music performed better on cognitive tests than those with no musical background.
