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The Science of Us
No one could accuse the boy’s self-appointed trainers of lacking ambition or being sticklers for ethical research. Psychologist John Watson of Johns Hopkins University and his graduate student Rosalie Rayner first observed that a 9-month-old boy, identified as Albert B., sat placidly when the researchers placed a white rat in front of him. In tests two months later, one of the researchers presented the rodent, and just as the child brought his hand to pet it, the other scientist stood behind Albert and clang a metal rod with a hammer.
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Gender in a Nonbinary World
Thekla Morgenroth with the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom shares their research on gender, inclusion, and transgender rights.
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What Kind of Training Does it Take to Become a World-Beating Athlete?
So you’re fired up from watching the action at the Tokyo Olympics, and ready to sign up your toddler for year-round travel judo so she can start racking up those 10,000 hours? Hold that thought. A new study published in Perspectives in Psychological Science wades into the long-standing debate about skill acquisition and talent development – a debate that, over the past two decades, has spilled out of psychology departments and elite sports institutes and into the broader public discourse. ...
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New Research in Psychological Science
A sample of research on visual illusions, the use of gestures to communicate, well-being and altruism across nations, sensory encoding, empathy, semantic similarity and attention, the neuronal processing of faces, categorical perception, and a learning disability affecting the acquisition of arithmetic skills.
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To Remember The Moment, Try Taking Fewer Photos
The sun is setting at the end of a gorgeous day at the beach — the light is just right, illuminating your kids' faces as they play in the waves. You reach for your phone because you want to remember this perfect moment. But before you do, here's a bit of surprising science that avid photo-takers need to know: Taking photos is not the perfect memory-retention tool you think it is. Snapping too many pictures could actually harm the brain's ability to retain memories, says Elizabeth Loftus, a psychological science professor at the University of California, Irvine. So you get the photo but kind of lose the memory.
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Can Coping With COVID Make Things Worse?
How people respond to health threats can influence their own health and, when people are facing communal risks, even their community’s health. This interview explores how reducing fear may jeopardize health behaviors.
