-
The Best Way to Predict the Future
BBC: Cast your mind back across the turbulent events of recent history. Did you foresee President Obama’s election before he was even elected as a Democratic candidate – or did you back Hillary Clinton? How about the Arab Spring – could you hear the revolution in the first tremors of dissatisfaction? And did you faithfully predict the recent Ukraine crisis? If you answer yes to these questions, you could be a “super-forecaster”, someone who is able to foresee the outcome of world events with astonishing accuracy. This has nothing to do with the reading of tea leaves; nor do you have to be a seasoned political pundit.
-
Music Changes the Way You Think
Scientific American: Hum the first two notes of “The Simpsons” theme song. (If you’re not a Simpsons fan, “Maria” from West Side Story will also do.) The musical interval you’re hearing—the pitch gap between the notes—is known as a “tritone,” and it’s commonly recognized in music theory as one of the most dissonant intervals, so much so that composers and theorists in the 18th century dubbed itdiabolus in musica (“devil in music”). Now hum the first few notes of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, or, if you prefer something with a little more street cred, the “I’m sorry” part in Outkast’s “Ms.
-
In Defense of Brain Imaging
National Geographic: Brain imaging has fared pretty well in its three decades of existence, all in all. A quick search of the PubMed database for one of the most popular methods, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), yields some 22,000 studies. In 2010 the federal government promised $40 million for the Human Connectome Project, which aims to map all of the human brain’s connections. And brain imaging will no doubt play a big part in the president’s new, $4.5 billion BRAIN Initiative. If you bring up brain scanning at a summer BBQ party, your neighbors may think you’re weird, but they’ll be somewhat familiar with what you’re talking about.
-
Masters of Love
The Atlantic: Every day in June, the most popular wedding month of the year, about 13,000 American couples will say “I do,” committing to a lifelong relationship that will be full of friendship, joy, and love that will carry them forward to their final days on this earth. Except, of course, it doesn’t work out that way for most people. The majority of marriages fail, either ending in divorce and separation or devolving into bitterness and dysfunction. Of all the people who get married, only three in ten remain in healthy, happy marriages, as psychologist Ty Tashiro points out in his book The Science of Happily Ever After, which was published earlier this year.
-
Adults with Autism Report Struggles With Driving
As the population of adults diagnosed with autism grows, a new study provides a first step toward identifying whether this population is getting help with a key element of independent living — appropriate driving education. Only a few studies have investigated driving ability in individuals with autism, and those studies concentrated on adolescents and new drivers rather than experienced adult drivers. Those studies relied on either parental reports or evaluations based on one aspect of driving behavior. But in the new research, a team led by University of Drexel psychological scientist Brian P.
-
Jonathan Haidt — The Psychology Behind Morality
On Being: The surprising psychology behind morality is at the heart of social psychologist Jonathan Haidt’s research. “When it comes to moral judgments," he says, "we think we are scientists discovering the truth, but actually we are lawyers arguing for positions we arrived at by other means.” He explains “liberal” and “conservative” not narrowly or necessarily as political affiliations, but as personality types — ways of moving through the world. His own self-described “conservative-hating, religion-hating, secular liberal instincts” have been challenged by his own studies. Listen to the whole story: On Being
