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When Kids Know Better
In case you missed it, the cameras were rolling at the APS 23rd Annual Convention in Washington, DC. Watch Alia Martin from Yale University and Kelcey Wilson from Quinnipiac University present their poster session research on “When Kids Know Better: Paternalistic Helping in 3-Year-Old Children.” One challenge we face in helping others is that sometimes the best way to help is by not doing what is requested. Martin, Wilson, and collaborators showed that 3-year-old children can override a communicated request and, as a result, provide the most useful means of helping another person to achieve her goal.
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APSSC Award Winners Talk About Identity and Race
Eighty-three years after the birth Martin Luther King, Jr., psychological scientists continue to investigate race, cultural identity, and prejudice. Three APSSC Award presentations at the APS 23rd Annual Convention in Washington, DC addressed how these factors influence health and social interaction. Watch Sabrica Barnett (The City University of New York), Bryan Jensen (Brigham Young University), and Lillian Polanco (Hunter College) present their research. Designing effective methods to combat prejudice is still a challenge for researchers. To learn more, read Wray Herbert’s blog on the problem with “colorblindness” or recent research on anti-prejudice messages from Psychological Science.
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Meet Your Brain
In December, 2.4 millions viewers watched APS Fellow Bruce Hood deliver the Royal Institution of Great Britain Christmas Lectures. The lectures were started in 1825 and target a teenage audience. They have been delivered by prominent scientists including David Attenborough and Richard Dawkins. Hood’s three-part lecture series, entitled “Meet Your Brain,” explores how the human brain functions, interprets the outside world, and guides social interaction. The first lecture, “What’s in your head?” explains how the human brain constructs its own version of reality. In this clip about how the eyes and the brain work together, Hood makes some surprising observations about human vision.
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Rotman Research Conference
Join us March 26-28, 2012 in Toronto for a 3-day conference on the topic of mild cognitive impairment! Keynote speakers include Dr. Marilyn Albert and Dr. David Knopman. Poster submissions are due January 13th and early-bird registration ends January 31st, so act now! Visit our website for more information. http://research.baycrest.org/conference
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Pupillometry Turns 50
When someone loves you or is lying to you, you might be able to see it in their eyes—or at least their pupils. “Pupillometry” — which uses pupil-diameter measurements for psychological research — recently turned 50 years old. Measuring pupil diameter allows scientists to approximate the intensity of mental activity as well as potential changes in mental state. The technique is also a promising tool for studying subjects that can’t speak, such as infants, patients with neurological damage, and even animals. The January 2012 issue of Perspectives on Psychological Science features commentary by Bruno Laeng and colleagues on the history, promise, and current state of pupillometry research.
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Emotional Expression: The Brain and the Face
The Facial Emotion Expression Lab (FEELab) at the University Fernando Pessoa Health Sciences School on behalf of his Head, Professor Freitas-Magalhaes is in the process of preparing the edited volume entitled “Emotional Expression: The Brain and the Face” (Volume 5). If your area of research fits in well in this edited volume, and have a paper to be interest for this book, we invite you to submit for consideration a paper (theoretical or research) on your area of research. This Project has become a global interaction and scientific production tool, of inestimable usefulness in the academic world in the Studies in Brain, Face and Emotion series.
