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Look Out, Kids: Competitiveness Peaks in Middle Age
Miller-McCune: In our culture, competitiveness is usually associated with youth. Think of sporting contests, music competitions (both of the classical virtuoso and pop diva varieties), or the pressure-packed process of applying to prestigious universities. It now appears watching eager young performers in action may have skewed our view of the competitive urge. Newly published research suggests the instinct to bet on the superiority of one’s skills peaks around age 50.
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2 Scientists Receive Grawemeyer Award for Psychology
The Chronicle of Higher Education: Two scientists with the National Institute of Mental Health will receive the 2012 University of Louisville Grawemeyer Award for Psychology for their research on how the brain works, the university has announced. The researchers, Leslie Ungerleider and Mortimer Mishkin, were the first to show that the brain uses separate visual-processing systems to recognize objects and fix their location, a concept described in the award announcement as the "what and where" pathways idea. "Few ideas have been so influential on the field of psychology and neuroscience," said Heywood M.
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Why Do Some People Never Forget A Face?
“Face recognition is an important social skill, but not all of us are equally good at it,” says Beijing Normal University cognitive psychologist Jia Liu. But what accounts for the difference? A new study by Liu and colleagues Ruosi Wang, Jingguang Li, Huizhen Fang, and Moqian Tian provides evidence that the inequality of abilities is rooted in the unique way in which the mind perceives faces. “Individuals who process faces more holistically”—that is, as an integrated whole—“are better at face recognition,” says Liu. The findings will appear in an upcoming issue of Psychological Science, a journal published by the Association for Psychological Science.
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Warum der Eiffelturm von links kleiner ist
bild der wissenschaft: Die Körperhaltung beeinflusst Schätzungen Wie hoch schätzen Sie den Eiffelturm? Weniger als 300 Meter? Falls ja – die tatsächliche Höhe liegt etwas über 324 Meter – sollte Sie einmal auf Ihre Körperhaltung achten: Es könnte sein, dass Sie leicht nach links tendieren Auch wenn das im ersten Moment etwas eigenartig klingt: Niederländische Forscher haben jetzt genau einen solchen Zusammenhang zwischen der Körperhaltung und einer Tendenz zum Unterschätzen von Mengen und Größen nachgewiesen.
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Mind-Body Mindblower: Posture Affects Estimates
Scientific American: How many Michael Jackson songs do you think became Number 1 hits? How tall do you think the Eiffel Tower is? How good is your posture? Believe it or not, how you sit or stand could affect your answers. Because a new study finds that our estimates are skewed by the position of our bodies. The work is in the journal Psychological Science. [Anita Eerland, Tulio Guadalupe and Rolf Zwaan, Leaning to the Left Makes the Eiffel Tower Seem Smaller: Posture-Modulated Thought, in press] Dutch researchers rigged a Wii Balance Board to subtly tilt left, right, or remain flat while students stood on the board and answered estimation questions.
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Does Having a Sweet Tooth Make You a Sweeter Person?
Shape Magazine: Can your personality impact the foods you love to eat? Or can what snacks you reach for change people's perceptions of you? Perhaps, according to a new study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Researchers looked at whether or not people who ate sweet foods were more likely to volunteer to help another person in need as compared to people who ate non-sweet foods or no food at all. Their results?
