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Review: Michael Lewis on Two Well Matched (but Finally Mismatched) Men
The New York Times: Among Daniel Kahneman’s many imaginative contributions to the field of psychology is something called the “peak-end rule,” which holds that our memories of any given experience are defined not by how we felt about it moment to moment, but how we felt as it ended and how it felt at its most intense. Say you go to Italy, and the first five days are blighted by rain, but the last two are ablaze with sunshine. You are likely to remember that trip far more fondly than had it been the other way around. Read the whole story: The New York Times
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To Save Money, Pay Attention to Your Mood
New York Magazine: In this chaotic and uncertain world, there are still a few things we can count on to happen each December. The air will turn colder. There will be some outrage about the design of some chain’s holiday cups. And in the last couple weeks of December, stressed-out procrastinators will elbow their way through crowded stores, cursing themselves for not doing their shopping earlier and miserably calculating how much of their paycheck will be left once the season of spending passes. ... As Scientific American noted, much of the research on mood and consumption is the work of Jennifer Lerner, who co-founded Harvard’s Decision Sciences Laboratory.
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This Illusion Shows How Your Peripheral Vision Is Playing Tricks on You
New York Magazine: Of the five senses, sight seems to be the most trustworthy. It’s the one that’s most helpful in getting us through the day, the one that pushes us the most from I think to I know. Seeing is believing, a picture’s worth a thousand words, etc. But really, sight is a lot trickier than we give it credit for. Often times, the reality we think we’re seeing is something else altogether — the brain bends visual information to suit its purposes, warping our vision in any number of ways. The sting of rejection, for example, makes us more inclined to perceive a stray glance as eye contact, even when it hasn’t actually landed anywhere near our eyes.
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Helping the lonely and elderly during the holidays
The Baltimore Sun: When 92-year-old Carolyn Bochau gets a visitor at home, she concedes that she turns into a chatterbox. Because of health problems and old age, the Baltimore resident doesn't go out for much more than doctor appointments, so she gets excited when she has company. Around the holidays she said she wants companionship even more. "I can't keep quiet when someone is here," she said. "Because I am always cooped up in here, when someone comes I say everything and anything that comes out of my mouth." ... Prolonged isolation can be as bad for health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day, according research published last year in the journal Perspectives on Psychological Science.
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Merci pour ce cadeau (Thank you for this gift)
Le Monde: Aujourd’hui, les cadeaux pour adultes les plus vendus (étude Deloitte, 2013) sont, dans l’ordre : les livres, le chocolat, les cosmétiques, les DVD, l’argent. C’est si simple finalement de ne pas se tromper. Alors, d’où viennent ces erreurs critiques qui poussent quelqu’un à offrir un CD de Mylène Farmer à un fan d’opéra ou un pull taille 12 ans à son fils de 40 piges ?
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Take the mind-bending tests that reveal how our brain ‘invents’ part of our peripheral vision
New Zealand Herald: The world around you might not be exactly as it seems. In a new study, researchers have found that some of what we see in the periphery - the areas just outside our eye's direct focus - could be a visual illusion. A series of 'uniformity illusions' reveals this phenomenon at work, as our brain 'fills in' part of the scene to make up for our less accurate peripheral vision. According to the study, published in the journal Psychological Science, peripheral vision captures far less detail than what's seen in the centre of the visual field. But, in our day-to-day lives, we often don't notice a difference.
