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Do Babies Know When They’re Skyping?
The Atlantic: Long before most babies toddle or talk, they begin to make sophisticated inferences about the world around them. By as young as 3 months old, newborns can form expectations based on physical principles like gravity, speed, and momentum. Scientists at several universities told me they now have evidence, to the likely delight of far-flung grandparents everywhere, that infants can also tell the difference between, say, a broadcast of Mister Rogers and a video call with their actual grandfather.
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Brain on Sports Podcast: The athletic payoffs of positive body language
Sports Illustrated: “This is Your Brain on Sports” is a new podcast from Sports Illustrated in which SI executive editor Jon Wertheim and Tufts University psychology professor Sam Sommers explore the intersection of sports and human nature—what the world of sports has to teach us about who we are, what we care about, and the forces that shape our behavior. In this week’s episode, Sommers is joined by Dr. Amy Cuddy, a world-renowned expert in body language, to discuss the subconscious messages the body sends and how those physical messages can shape the mental sharpness of top athletes. Read the whole story: Sports Illustrated
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How helping kids with their math homework can make them worse off
Quartz: It’s understandable that parents worry about their children’s math performance, even at a very young age, and that they try to help. But they may need to start thinking about how they help; according to a new study in Psychological Science, the more that anxious parents try to help their kids with math homework, the more harm they do. “When parents have a poor relation with math and frequently help their children with their homework, their children learn less math,” write the researchers, led by Erin Maloney at the University of Chicago. Read the whole story: Quartz
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Who Apes Whom?
The New York Times: WHEN I learned last week about the discovery of an early human relative deep in a cave in South Africa, I had many questions. Obviously, they had dug up a fellow primate, but of what kind? The fabulous find, named Homo naledi, has rightly been celebrated for both the number of fossils and their completeness. It has australopithecine-like hips and an ape-size brain, yet its feet and teeth are typical of the genus Homo. ... News reports spoke of a “new ancestor,” even a “new human species,” assuming a ladder heading our way, whereas what we are actually facing when we investigate our ancestry is a tangle of branches.
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Extraverted Populations Have Lower Savings Rates
Particular personality traits may have a powerful influence on a country’s economic outlook, according to new research. Across three studies, University of Toronto psychological scientist Jacob Hirsh found that populations that tend to have higher levels of extraversion are less likely to save for the future. Hirsh argues that understanding this link between personality and economic behavior will become even more essential as the world’s aging population begins to retire. High levels of debt accompanied by low savings pose national economic risks, including vulnerability to economic downturns and higher levels of unemployment.
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Multi-tasking: how to survive in the 21st century
Financial Times: Forget invisibility or flight: the superpower we all want is the ability to do several things at once. Unlike other superpowers, however, being able to multitask is now widely regarded as a basic requirement for employability. Some of us sport computers with multiple screens, to allow tweeting while trading pork bellies and frozen orange juice. Others make do with reading a Kindle while poking at a smartphone and glancing at a television in the corner with its two rows of scrolling subtitles. We think nothing of sending an email to a colleague to suggest a quick coffee break, because we can feel confident that the email will be read within minutes. ...
