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Ability to Identify Genuine Laughter Transcends Culture
People across cultures and continents are largely able to tell the difference between a fake laugh and a real one.
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A pair of neuroscientists finds that investigating emotions is easier done than said
Ask a roomful of neuroscientists to define the term “emotion” and you will trigger a lively discussion. Some will argue that emotions involve conscious experiences that can be studied only in humans. Others might counter that insects and other invertebrates exhibit some of the emotion building blocks seen in mammals. Some will contend that different emotions correspond to anatomically distinct areas of the brain, whereas others argue that emotions are produced in a highly distributed manner. Still others will bring up the 19th-century psychologist William James’s argument that emotions are a consequence, not a cause, of behavior. In The Neuroscience of Emotion, Ralph Adolphs and David J.
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Raising Brilliant Kids — With Research To Back You Up
"Why are traffic lights red, yellow and green?" When a child asks you a question like this, you have a few options. You can shut her down with a "Just because." You can explain: "Red is for stop and green is for go." Or, you can turn the question back to her and help her figure out the answer with plenty of encouragement. No parent, teacher or caregiver has the time or patience to respond perfectly to all of the many, many opportunities like these that come along. But one book, Becoming Brilliant: What Science Tells Us About Raising Successful Children, is designed to get us thinking about the magnitude of these moments.
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You’re Not as Smart as You Think: Perils and Benefits of Overconfidence
It is widely known—or at least widely believed—that people are overconfident in their own abilities. Psychological research has consistently found, in fact, that people have too high a self-assessment when it comes to traits that they see as important or socially desirable. We tend to think we are funnier, better leaders, better at driving and even more attractive than we really are. But what do people think about one of the most desirable and important traits a person can have: intelligence? The claim that “most people think they are smarter than average” is a cliché of popular psychology, but the scientific evidence for it is surprisingly thin.
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NIH delays controversial clinical trials policy for some studies
Basic brain and behavioral researchers will get more than a year to comply with a new U.S. policy that will treat many of their studies as clinical trials. The announcement from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) appears to defuse, for now, a yearlong controversy over whether basic research on humans should follow the same rules as studies testing drugs. --- Behavioral researchers conducting studies that meet the clinical trials definition will also have to take a training course on clinical practices, but it can be a brief online seminar tailored to the field.
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Your Earliest Memory Probably Never Happened
What is your first memory? A vivid scene may come to mind, seen from toddler eyes. Unfortunately, that scene may be a work of fiction, a new study finds. That's because scientific literature suggests that it's not possible to have a memory from before the age of 2, said lead study author Shazia Akhtar, a senior research associate at the University of Bradford in England. Despite this, nearly 40 percent of the people in the new study claimed that their first memory occurred at age 2 years or younger, with most of the first memories falling between ages 9 months to 12 months.
