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Withdrawn Children Show Predictable Brain Activity During Social Interactions
New scientific findings provide insight into the brain activity of socially withdrawn children.
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Some Vowel Sounds Pack a Punch for Brands
When naming a company or a product, marketers may want to pay extra attention to the exact syllables they’re considering. New research demonstrates that specific sounds can convey an impressive amount of symbolic meaning, which can influence the way people perceive a brand. Across five studies, a team led by University of Toronto psychological scientists Cristina Rabaglia and Sam Maglio demonstrated that people intuitively associate front vowel sounds—those produced with the tongue relatively far forward in the mouth, such as the “ee” in feet—with nearby objects. Conversely, vowel sounds produced with the tongue far back in the mouth, such as the “oo” in food, are associated with distance.
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Are Digital Billboards Dangerously Distracting?
Digital ads use bright lights, rotating images, and flashy content to get your attention, but do they take your eyes (and your mind) off the road long enough to create a hazard? Digital billboards — dynamic, electronically illuminated, light emitting diode (LED) advertisements — are a rapidly growing section of the marketing industry. One look around Times Square and you’ll understand why: The billboards are shiny, interesting, and attention-grabbing. We often can’t help but look at them. On the road, these advertising structures stand far above the ground, rotating through ads approximately every 8–10 seconds and marketing various companies, organizations, and products in a single space.
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Why “Yes” Is More Powerful Than “No”
Getting up the nerve to ask your boss for a raise or promotion can feel excruciating. Although we might dread the prospect of asking the boss—or even a colleague—for a favor, a large body of evidence suggests that we’re actually much better at influencing others than we might imagine. “Potential requesters stress about imposing on others, feel self-conscious about revealing their shortcomings, and fear the worst—rejection,” Cornell University psychological scientist Vanessa Bohns writes in a new article in Current Directions in Psychological Science.
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Choice May Sometimes Be A Cognitive Illusion
We may believe that we’re making decisions consciously when the decisions have actually already been made, results from two studies show.
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Psychological Scientists Elected to American Academy of Arts & Sciences
A total of 11 psychological scientists, all of whom are APS Fellows, have been elected as members of the 2016 class of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. The academy is “one of the country’s oldest learned societies and independent policy research centers, convening leaders from the academic, business, and government sectors,” and includes 4,600 members from many disciplines and professions. Of the newest class of members, John D. Gabrieli was elected to the Mathematical and Physical Sciences class, Neurosciences, Cognitive Sciences, and Behavioral Biology section.
