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Contaminated Memories
I began exploring the intersection of memory and law after hearing the story of Penny Beerntsen, who was assaulted while running on a beach in 1985 — and who misidentified her assailant in the subsequent investigation. There’s a term for what she experienced: “memory contamination.” It’s when investigators influence an interview with a subject, resulting in inaccurate information. Moved by Ms. Beerntsen’s account as well as her openness about it, I wanted to help share her story more broadly. (Her case became well known when her misidentified assailant’s account was featured in the series “Making a Murderer;” the show does not include Ms.
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What’s So Funny? The Science of Why We Laugh
“How Many Psychologists Does It Take ... to Explain a Joke?” Many, it turns out. As psychologist Christian Jarrett noted in a 2013 article featuring that riddle as its title, scientists still struggle to explain exactly what makes people laugh. Indeed, the concept of humor is itself elusive. Although everyone understands intuitively what humor is, and dictionaries may define it simply as “the quality of being amusing,” it is difficult to define in a way that encompasses all its aspects.
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The Life-Changing Magic of Being Messy
You might have a “messy” friend or family member. You can’t help but sigh at the chaos of their room — clean and dirty laundry mixed together. Odds are it’ll be difficult to walk two feet without encountering an empty chip bag. Gross? Yes. Bad? Not necessarily. As a stereotypically “messy” person myself, I’ve received my own share of scorn. Living in a boarding school, I’m obligated to keep my room nice and tidy, ready for visitors and as a model to underclassmen. Monday room inspections are the norm, and faculty members have sometimes passively, sometimes aggressively, urged my roommate and me to clean up.
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Language patterns may predict psychosis
Psychotic disorders such as schizophrenia can be highly disabling. An episode of psychosis involves experiences that aren’t based in reality. These can include hallucinations and delusions, such as feeling that people are trying to harm you. If researchers could identify when people with psychotic disorders are verging on psychosis, promising methods to delay or stop the process could be tested. Studies suggest that language patterns may help predict if someone is likely to experience psychosis. Drs. Neguine Rezaii, Elaine Walker, and Phillip Wolf of Emory University tested whether machine learning could help identify such patterns.
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Why your emotions and senses go haywire on a plane
When model, cookbook author and unofficial mayor of Twitter Chrissy Teigen wondered aloud on the social media platform whether there is a reason she cries more at movies while on a plane, she tapped into a shared — and apparently emotional — travel experience. "Is there something about being on an airplane that makes you cry more during movies? I definitely cry more." The answer from her followers was an overwhelming “yes”: Followers attested to sobbing over “Deadpool 2,” “Bridget Jones’s Baby,” airline safety videos — you name it. And the reasons hypothesized to explain the emotions were just as varied. It’s the vodka. Or the altitude. Or the lower oxygen levels in the blood.
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The Yale Happiness Class, Distilled
The most popular class in the history of Yale University was inspired by a paradox: Even when people, conventionally speaking, succeed—get into a top college, make lots of money, or accumulate prestige and accolades—they are often left feeling unsatisfied. It’s a problem that may be particularly acute at a place like Yale, but the lessons of the class, called “Psychology and the Good Life,” are widely applicable—they address fundamental features of the human mind that make it difficult to appreciate things that seem like they’d be great.
