-
The Science of Illusion
The New York Times: PINCH a coin at its edge between the thumb and first fingers of your right hand and begin to place it in your left palm, without letting go. Begin to close the fingers of the left hand. The instant the coin is out of sight, extend the last three digits of your right hand and secretly retract the coin. Make a fist with your left — as if holding the coin — as your right hand palms the coin and drops to the side. You’ve just performed what magicians call a retention vanish: a false transfer that exploits a lag in the brain’s perception of motion, called persistence of vision.
-
New Research from Current Directions in Psychological Science
Psychological Detachment From Work During Leisure Time: The Benefits of Mentally Disengaging From Work Sabine Sonnentag Are you the type of person who still thinks about work during the weekend? In this article, Sonnentag reviews research examining the psychological benefits of mentally disengaging from work during leisure time -- evenings, weekends, and vacations. She highlights main findings from studies examining the benefits of psychological detachment and discusses factors that help and hinder disengagement from work. She concludes by discussing the future directions and the practical implications of this research.
-
Anxiety Disorders Diagnosed More Often in Women Than Men
The Wall Street Journal: Women are twice as likely as men to be diagnosed with anxiety disorders—and the reasons range from hormonal fluctuations to brain chemistry to upbringing to empathy, researchers theorize. Susan Nolen-Hoeksema, chair of the department of psychology at Yale, says one reason women are more anxious is that they tend to take responsibility for other peoples’ happiness, especially their children’s and spouse’s. “It’s kind of a Catch-22, because they can’t always do anything about them,” says Dr. Nolen-Hoeksema, author of “The Power of Women” and other books.
-
Did You Ever Wonder Whether Rats Laugh?
Scientific American: Jaak Panksepp of Washington State University woke up one morning and told his students: “let’s go tickle some rats.” Panksepp wondered whether the rat chirps his laboratory had been studying were actually a form of animal laughter. Panksepp recounts what he found in this video and in an account of his work by Jesse Bering in a chapter from Bering’s new book Why Is the Penis Shaped Like That? . . . And Other Reflections on Being Human, published this year by Scientific American/Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Read the whole story: Scientific American
-
To Think Outside the Box, It Helps to Have a Box
Bloomberg Business Week: Literally following metaphors of creative thinking—actually sitting “outside the box” to complete word tasks, for example—enhances creative problem-solving, according to a recent study by the University of Michigan Ross School of Business professors Jeffrey Sanchez-Burks and Suntae Kim. To draw these conclusions, they assembled a team of international researchers who conducted five studies with nearly 400 college students who literally followed metaphors. Participants, for instance, generated ideas while first holding out their left hand and then their right hand to test “on the one hand, then on the other hand.” Read the whole story: Bloomberg Business Week
-
Thirtysomethings flex their number sense
ScienceNews: Even 6-month-old babies can rapidly estimate approximate numbers of items without counting. But surprisingly, an apparently inborn sense for numbers doesn’t top out until around age 30. Number sense precision gradually declines after that, generally falling to preteen levels by about age 70, say psychologist Justin Halberda of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and his colleagues. They report the findings, based on Internet testing of more than 10,000 volunteers ages 11 to 85, online the week of June 25 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
