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The Technology that Unmasks Your Hidden Emotions
The Wall Street Journal: Paul Ekman, perhaps the world’s most famous face reader, fears he has created a monster. The 80-year-old psychologist pioneered the study of facial expressions in the 1970s, creating a catalog of more than 5,000 muscle movements to show how the subtlest wrinkling of the nose or lift of an eyebrow reveal hidden emotions. Now, a group of young companies with names like Emotient Inc., Affectiva Inc. and Eyeris are using Dr. Ekman’s research as the backbone of a technology that relies on algorithms to analyze people’s faces and potentially discover their deepest feelings.
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Does Mathematical Ability Predict Career Success?
Scientific American: In the early 1970s researchers identified a large sample of U.S. 13-year-olds who were exceptionally talented in math—landing in the top 1 percent of mathematical reasoning scores on SAT tests. Forty years later those wunderkinder are now midcareer and have accomplished even more than expected, according to a recent follow-up survey. Researchers at Vanderbilt University's Peabody College published the update in the December 2014 issue of Psychological Science, writing: “For both males and females, mathematical precocity early in life predicts later creative contributions and leadership in critical occupational roles.” Read the whole story: Scientific American
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Need to Solve a Personal Problem? Try a Third-Person Perspective
Why is it that when other people ask for advice about a problem, we always seem to have sage words at the ready, but when we ourselves face a similar situation, we feel stumped about what to do? In a 2014 Psychological Science article, researchers Igor Grossmann (University of Waterloo) and APS Fellow Ethan Kross (University of Michigan) suggested that people’s tendency to reason more wisely about others’ social problems than they do about their own is a common habit — one they referred to as Solomon’s Paradox. In a series of studies, the researchers not only found evidence of Solomon’s Paradox, but also identified a way that this reasoning bias can be eliminated.
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When Musicians Unintentionally Steal
Pacific Standard: Imagine your favorite musician, actor, filmmaker, or painter. Undoubtedly, each one grew up idolizing—emulating, even—their artistic heroes. As such, if you pay close enough attention, it's not hard to see those influences permeating the artist’s work. But at what point does paying homage to source material become a swindle?
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The Myth of the Harmless Wrong
The New York Times: SOCIAL conservatives who bemoan the immorality of same-sex marriage typically also decry the harm it wreaks on society. The pundit Alan Keyes calls gay marriage a “social weapon of mass destruction,” while the North Carolina pastor Michael Barrett argues that widespread gay marriage would be “equivalent to a nuclear holocaust.” To liberals, the claim that same-sex marriage is socially harmful is uninformed at best (granting gay rights actually appears to improve a country’s gross domestic product) and shameless fear-mongering at worst. Either way, liberals contend that opponents of gay marriage are inventing victims that they don’t actually see. ...
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‘Baby-talk’ might not be easy to understand for kids, study finds
PBS: Parents may be using “baby-talk” when speaking to infants with the goal of making it easier for babies to understand, but a new Japanese study shows this may have the opposite effect. Two research teams, one in Japan and one in Paris, published their findings in Psychological Science to determine if mothers do speak more clearly to infants. Researchers in Tokyo recorded 22 Japanese mothers speaking to their children, all 18-24 months, as well as to an experimenter. Over the next five years, researchers analyzed the speech and found when talking to the experimenter, mothers spoke more clearly than when speaking to their babies. Read the whole story: PBS
