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Do The Funky…Pigeon
You could read Emma Ware’s PhD thesis to find out how social dynamics influence the behavior of pigeons…or, you could watch her dance. Ware was the Social Science winner of the 2011 Dance Your PhD Contest, sponsored by Science and TEDxBrussels. Her dance shows that when confronted when an unresponsive female pigeon on a prerecorded video, the courtship behavior of male pigeons decreased. Courtship behavior also decreased in response to a nine-second delay in the female’s response. In contrast, the male’s courtship behavior didn’t decrease in response to one-second delays, three-second delays, or spatial manipulations.
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A Conversation About Music, Mind, and Health
What effect does music have on the brain, and what can music teach us about the brain? In this video 24th APS Annual Convention Speaker Aniruddh Patel and music therapist Barbara Reuer speak with David Granet of the University of California's Health Matters about music, cognition, and health. Scientists are just beginning to understand music’s implications for language acquisition, emotions, social skills, learning, and memory. Watch the interview to learn more about music and the mind, including research published in Psychological Science showing that music and other synchronized activities encourage cooperation.
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Good Reason to Dwell on What Might Have Been
Don’t beat yourself up for daydreaming about what would have happened if you’d chosen a different career, bought a different house, or committed to a different partner. Research suggests that thinking about what might have been helps us find meaning in past events we can no longer change. Laura Kray of the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley is an expert in counterfactual research. In this clip from the Haas School, Kray discusses some of the research she will present at the 24th APS Annual Convention. In one experiment, Kray and her coauthors asked participants to write about a turning point in their lives.
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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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Be YOUR Motivation
As you draw up your list of New Year's Resolutions for 2012, remember to set goals that are really important to you. In this video from Eco-mobilite.tv, psychological scientist Maarten Vansteenkiste explains why autonomous motivation (change that is personally important) is more effective than controlled motivation (change that results from outside pressure). Vansteenkiste's APS Rising Star profile can tell you more about his research. If you want to know even more about motivation, you can read research on effective and ineffective anti-prejudice messages from Psychological Science or watch footage from APS Fellow Elke Webber’s recent chat with the Dalai Llama.
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Remembering (and Replicating) the Milgram Experiments
Fifty years ago, Stanley Milgram’s famous obedience experiments showed that ordinary people would harm others when instructed to do so by an authority figure. The experiment was recently replicated on the Discovery Channel’s series Curiosity with the help of psychological scientist Jerry Burger. Watch this video to find out what went through the mind of a participant who said no and refused to shock another person. For more on the Milgram experiment, tune in to CNN at 7:30 am on Saturday December 10 or Sunday December 11 to watch Sanjay Gupta’s interview with Jerry Burger and Thomas Blass, both APS Members.
