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March Methodology Madness
Every spring, March Madness hits college basketball in the US. The Observer borrows the tournament’s nickname to spotlight innovations and trends in research practices. In our annual March Methodology Madness issue, we report on the latest tools and techniques that psychological scientists are pioneering and employing to advance the study of the human condition.
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Speed Reading Promises Are Too Good to Be True, Scientists Find
Learning to speed read seems like an obvious strategy for making quick work of all the emails, reports, and other pieces of text we encounter every day, but a comprehensive review of the science behind
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Under the Hood of Mechanical Turk
When Amazon launched a product called Mechanical Turk (MTurk) just over a decade ago, the e-commerce giant billed it as an online service to enable a marketplace of workers to complete tasks in exchange for
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Investigating Social Contagion With Digital Tools
Accumulating research provides evidence for a provocative idea that certain behaviors — such as smoking and eating habits — are contagious. Data suggest that we’re influenced not only by the behavior of our friends, family
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Video as Data
APS Fellow Karen Adolph introduces Databrary, a web-based video library funded by the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health to enable sharing and reuse of research videos among developmental scientists.
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Across Your Universe
Longitudinal data collection that used to require hours of manpower, equipment, and logistical coordination now can occur almost instantly, from anywhere in the world and virtually at any time.