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Visualize and Score… BIG!
Scientific American: I love optical illusions. They make me feel clever if I can figure them out and even when I have to peek at the answer, it’s still fun to find out how my brain was tricked. But do they serve any purpose in the real world? Can we use them to make us sharper in our everyday lives? Well if you are an athlete or just play sports for fun on the weekends then the answer may be yes. Using illusions to your advantage may help you hit the free throw, putt the ball in the hole in less strokes or even successfully knock one out of the park. Read the whole story: Scientific American
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From Karen to Katie —Using Baby Names to Understand Cultural Evolution
From Top 40 hits to baby names, styles change and fashions evolve over time. While the latest fad may seem arbitrary, new research suggests that basic psychological processes can explain why some things become popular. In a study forthcoming in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, researcher Jonah Berger, from the University of Pennsylvania, and his colleagues investigated whether trends in baby names could help us to understand how and why things become popular over time. “We were interested in understanding cultural evolution or whether it is possible to predict what things will become popular next,” said Berger.
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Warum die Krebsfrüherkennung überschätzt wird
Der Spiegel: Was beeinflusst stärker, ob man ein medizinisches Verfahren für nützlich oder schädlich hält: eine Reihe von Zahlen oder die Geschichte eines Kollegen, dessen Freund durch die Therapie gerettet wurde? Psychologen betonen, dass Menschen sich stark von solchen Anekdoten beeinflussen lassen. Im Fachblatt "Psychological Science" erklären sie es unter anderem mit dieser Tatsache, dass eine Entscheidung gegen ein allgemeines Prostatakrebs-Screening per PSA-Test in den USA für Aufruhr sorgte. 2011 hatte die US Preventive Services Task Force von der Reihenuntersuchung abgeraten - was sich statistisch sauber begründen ließ.
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You Can Go Home Again
The New York Times: Just when parents thought they might finally be free of their children, many of this year’s college graduates will pick up their degrees — and move back home. Even those who don’t may continue to live off the parental dole; at the start of HBO’s hit series “Girls,” Hannah, played by Lena Dunham, is trying to keep the monthly checks from Mom and Dad coming. The fragile economy could exacerbate the phenomenon of delayed adolescence, keeping Americans in their late 20s and even early 30s dependent on their families for years. But this is not necessarily the nightmare scenario it’s made out to be.
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New Research From Psychological Science
Learned Predictiveness Speeds Visual Processing Jennifer L. O'Brien and Jane E. Raymond Can learning the predictive value of a cue for a specific outcome affect the visual processing of that cue? Participants were presented with face pairs and were asked to choose one of the two faces. Each face choice was related to a high or a low probability of winning or losing money during the task. Participants were then shown novel faces and faces from the previous task and were asked to indicate whether the face was "old" or "new." Faces that were highly predictive of monetary wins or losses on the previous task were recognized faster than faces associated with low predictability of wins or losses.
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Something for the weekend
Financial Times: It is estimated that this year the worldwide spend on advertising will be around $530bn. For advertisers it is vital that they spend their money wisely - targeting the right consumer to get their message across. Traditionally advertisers tailor their campaigns to specific demographic groups, retired professionals or young mothers for example. But now new research has highlighted an alternative approach – targeting personality profiles. Academics from North America selected five personality traits: agreeableness, extraversion, emotional stability, openness to experience and conscientiousness.
