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Looking for Evidence That Therapy Works
The New York Times: Mental-health care has come a long way since the remedy of choice was trepanation — drilling holes into the skull to release “evil spirits.” Over the last 30 years, treatments like cognitive-behavioral therapy, dialectical behavior therapy and family-based treatment have been shown effective for ailments ranging from anxiety and depression to post-traumatic stress disorder and eating disorders. ... Why the gap? According to Dianne Chambless, a professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, some therapists see their work as an art, a delicate and individualized process that works (or doesn’t) based on a therapist’s personality and relationship with a patient.
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For Babies, It’s Better To Like What I Like
NPR: Babies as young as nine months appear to approve of people who like what they like — and approve of being mean to those who don't share their tastes. Kiley Hamlin, lead author of a study in the journal Psychological Science, discusses the importance of similarity to young children. ... First let me introduce our guest. Kiley Hamlin is a Canada research chair and an assistant professor of psychology at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. Welcome to the program. Read the whole story: NPR
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Women Who Score Well on Both Math And Verbal Tests Still Don’t Choose Science Careers
Smithsonian Magazine: Women remain underrepresented in the sciences, but why? One team publishing in Psychological Science claims that it’s simply because women have more career choices these days. To arrive at this conclusion, the researchers examined national survey data from 1,490 students, both male and female, bound for college. The partipants were interviewed in the 12th grade, then again when they were 33 years old. They answered questions about their SAT scores, their motivations and beliefs and, later, their occupations. Those who had the highest verbal abilities—a group already dominated by women—they found, were most likely to avoid a career in science, technology or engineering.
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Scientists prove you really can tell what your dog is feeling by looking at its face
The Telegraph: A study has shown that people are able to precisely identify a range of emotions in dogs from changes in their facial expressions. The research showed that volunteers could correctly spot when a dog was happy, sad, angry, surprised or scared, when shown only a picture of the animal’s face, suggesting that humans are naturally attuned to detecting how animals are feeling. ...
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Decorating a Barren Memory Palace
The Huffington Post: In my mind's eye, I now have an image of overweight nudists on bicycles. It's not an image I want in my head, but it's vivid and -- my guess is -- enduring. I have science journalist Joshua Foer to thank for this. I have just watched his charming and hugely popular TEDTalk on memory, and he uses this image to illustrate an ancient mnemonic device called the "memory palace" -- a technique he has actually used to memorize the TEDTalk itself. ... And that's exactly what they found.
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Dancing Without Feet
The New Yorker: At the age of fourteen, Sidiki Conde collapsed on his way to school, in Guinea. For several months, he was in a coma. The lack of adequate medical knowledge muddies the source of his illness; it may have been polio. When he finally returned to consciousness, he was paralyzed from the neck down. He became deeply depressed; suicide crossed his mind. One night in a dream, a voice asked him, “Why you are so sad? You are still here. You have something to offer.” Inspired, Sidiki finally asked to be released from the hospital, and in the next few years gradually regained the function of his arms.
