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Why Depression Needs a New Definition
The Atlantic: In his Aphorisms, Hippocrates defined melancholia, an early understanding of depression, as a state of “fears and despondencies, if they last a long time.” It was caused, he believed, by an excess of bile in the body (the word “melancholia” is ancient Greek for “black bile”). Ever since then, doctors have struggled to create a more precise and accurate definition of the illness that still isn’t well understood.
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Hurricane Katrina’s psychological scars revealed
Nature: New Orleans still bears the scars of Hurricane Katrina, ten years later. More than 500,000 people fled when the storm hit, and many never returned. Large swathes of the city are sparsely populated, particularly in the poor neighbourhoods that suffered the most severe flood damage. Psychological scars linger, too. Many hurricane survivors continue to experience mental-health problems related to the storm, whether or not they returned to New Orleans, say researchers tracking Katrina’s psychological aftermath.
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What Would You Pay for This Meal?
The New York Times: How often have you bought something you felt wasn’t worth the money? What if you could set the price? What factors would influence your number? For years, behavioral scientists have studied such questions. They often look at a model called P.W.Y.W. (Pay-what-you-want, that is.) The idea may seem like a consumer’s giddiest fantasy. But a real-life extreme version of the experiment unfolding at a restaurant in Montclair, N.J., is affirming the researchers’ predictions. It has been triggering a panoply of reactions — including anxiety, delight, incredulity, guilt and, yes, rampant opportunism. ...
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New Research From Psychological Science
Read about the latest research published in Psychological Science: Can Faces Prime a Language? Evy Woumans, Clara D. Martin, Charlotte Vanden Bulcke, Eva Van Assche, Albert Costa, Robert J. Hartsuiker, and Wouter Duyck What cues initiate language selection in people who are bilingual? Spanish-Catalan bilinguals took part in simulated Skype conversations with interlocutors who spoke in either Spanish or Catalan.
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Why ‘Batman’ Met a Tragic Death on the Highway
Leonard B. Robinson, known as the "Route 29 Batman," was killed this week after his black “Batmobile” broke down on the highway. At the time of the accident, Robinson was dressed in the black Batman costume he often wore to cheer up sick children in the hospital. After his car experienced an engine problem, Robinson pulled over to the side of a dark highway where he got out of the car to check the engine in the dark. Robinson was killed when a passing car failed to spot him on the side of the road. Recent research has shown that pedestrians tend to underestimate how visible they are to drivers at night; likewise, motorists overestimate their own accuracy at spotting pedestrians in the dark.
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On Instagram, the Summer You’re Not Having
The New York Times: And how has your summer been so far? Have you been frolicking in the Hamptons with an Academy Award-winning actress? No? Then you have clearly not been having as good a time as Amy Schumer, who, as reported by Vanity Fair in an article titled “See Jennifer Lawrence and Amy Schumer Together on the Summer Vacation of Our Dreams,”documented on her Instagram account a trip she recently took with Ms. Lawrence, posting a blurry shot of herself and Ms. Lawrence on a Jet Ski. (There was also one of the two forming the top and bottom of a human pyramid on the deck of what appeared to be a rather sizable vessel.) ...
