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Geraldine Dawson – New Directions in Early Detection and Intervention in Autism
Recent prospective studies of infants at risk for autism spectrum disorders (ASD) have provided insights into very early development in autism and allowed clinicians to develop new screening tools for identifying infants at risk for ASD. At the same time that early screening tools are being developed, novel approaches to early intervention are being tested with infants at risk for ASD as young as 12 months of age. The hope is that, by intervening very early in life, the course of early brain and behavioral development can be modified and the core symptoms of autism can be significantly reduced, or even prevented in some cases.
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Save the Nerves for the Night Before
Four days left, 4 more psychological science highlights: Counting down to the Olympic Opening Ceremony, with research insights on sports and performance. #4. In Olympic competition, the margin between winning the gold and sitting in the stands often comes down to fractions of a second. Olympic athletes will be doing everything they can to gain even the slightest competitive edge. Researchers have found that feeling tense the night before a game could actually be part of gaining that edge. Recent research conducted at Northwestern University investigated whether feelings of tension play a part in swimming performance.
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How Shocking Will Others Find Lady Gaga?
In case you missed it, the cameras were rolling at the 24th APS Annual Convention in Chicago, Illinois, USA. Troy Campbell from Duke University presents his research “How Shocking Will Others Find Lady Gaga? Desensitization Via Repetition Biases Predictions.” The more experience you have, the wiser you are, right? Troy Campbell and colleagues at Duke University, the University of Michigan, and the University of Chicago found the opposite was true. Repeated exposure to jokes, pictures of Lady Gaga, sports photography, art, and a painful noise can actually make people worse at predicting how other people would experience the content.
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The Goal of Creativity
In case you missed it, the cameras were rolling at the 24th APS Annual Convention. Marieke Roskes, University of Amsterdam, presented her research on overcoming the cognitive costs of creativity. If you struggle with creativity and feel exhausted after a creative task, then psychological scientists have good news for you. People who strive for success and positive outcomes (approach motivation) are often more creative than those who strive to avoid failure or negative outcomes (avoidance motivation). But individuals who are motivated by avoiding failure can be as creative as those who are striving for success if they need creativity to achieve their goal.
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A More Inclusive Look at Singleness
Past research has found that single individuals are perceived more negatively than couples. However, in previous research on this topic, study participants have always rated targets who were presumably heterosexual because the target’s sexual orientation was not explicitly mentioned. In a recent study, APS Student Caucus Rise Award winner Gal Slonim and colleagues manipulated the sexual orientation of the targets to better understand whether the stigma associated with being single affects both heterosexual and homosexual targets in a similar manner.
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Sweet Revenge: Gustatory Experience and Vengeful Action
In case you missed it the cameras were rolling! Jens H. Hellmann from University of Münster, Germany presented his research at the APS 24th Annual Convention in Chicago, Illinois, USA in English and German. English German: The present experiment examined whether "revenge tastes sweet": We found that the evaluation of a vengeful act was more positive when participants had a sweet (vs. neutral) taste in their mouths. Furthermore, this relatively more positive evaluation did not emerge when the motive for the evaluated action was not revenge. Jens H. Hellmann University of Münster, Germany Deborah F. Thoben Helmut-Schmidt-University Hamburg, Germany
