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Wide-Eyed Fear Expressions May Help Us – and Others – to Locate Threats
Wide-eyed expressions that typically signal fear may enlarge our visual field and mutually enhance others’ ability to locate threats, according to new research published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. The research, conducted by psychology graduate student Daniel Lee of the University of Toronto with advisor Adam Anderson, suggests that wide-eyed expressions of fear are functional in ways that directly benefit both the person who makes the expression and the person who observes it. The findings show that widened eyes provide a wider visual field, which can help us to locate potential threats in our environment.
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MIND Reviews: Drunk Tank Pink
Scientific American Mind: At the 2004 Summer Olympics, researchers asked six athletes in different sports to wear red uniforms instead of their usual more subdued colors. All of them won gold. Although the color red, associated with sex, dominance and aggression, did not convey magical powers, it may have provided subconscious cues to the athletes and their opponents that swayed the outcome of the competition. In his new book, social psychologist Alter reveals how seemingly innocuous things, such as colors, symbols, even names, influence how we think and behave.
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Can clenching fists improve memory?
Los Angeles Times: Want a better grip on your memory? A study suggests clenching a fist could play a role in how well you recall information. Researchers recruited 51 right-handed individuals for the experiment, and asked them to squeeze a pink rubber ball for 90 seconds before they were shown a list of 36 words. They were then asked to squeeze the ball again before they wrote down as many of the words as they could remember. The test subjects who squeezed the ball with their right hand before memorizing the list, and then squeezed it with their left hand before writing words down, performed best.
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Gli spazi verdi in città fanno bene all’umore (The green spaces in the city do good for your mood)
La Stampa: Parchi, giardini, e spazi verdi nelle aree urbane migliorano considerevolmente la qualità della vita delle persone che vivono in città. Lo afferma uno studio dell’università di Exeter, pubblicato sul Journal of Psychological Science. La ricerca si è basata sui dati relativi a 5,000 famiglie e 10.000 adulti seguiti per 17 anni - fra 1991 e 2008 - nei loro trasferimenti in giro per il Regno Unito, ai quali è stato chiesto di riferire delle loro condizioni psicologiche per valutare “gli effetti degli spazi verdi”. I ricercatori hanno rilevato che vivere circondati da alberi, prati e fiorellini produce un effetto significativamente positivo.
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Why people believe in conspiracy theories
Salon: We’ve written before about the historical and social aspects of conspiracy theories, but wanted to learn more about the psychology of people who believe, for instance, that the Boston Marathon bombing was a government “false flag” operation. Psychological forces like motivated reasoning have long been associated with conspiracy thinking, but scientists are learning more every year. For instance, a British study published last year found that people who believe one conspiracy theory are prone to believe many, even ones that are completely contradictory.
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Why using a mobile phone can be contagious
The Telegraph: Researchers concluded that a person was twice as likely to talk on a mobile, or check for messages, if a companion did the same. The University of Michigan study discovered that checking a phone created an “alternative outlet” for a person's attention. It also found that females were more likely to use their mobile than men because it was more “integrated into the daily lives of women”. Scientists suggested the study’s findings, published in the Human Ethology Bulletin journal, could be linked to “social exclusion”, in which a human feels the need not be left feeling “out of the loop”.
