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No Pictures, Please: Taking Photos May Impede Memory of Museum Tour
Visit a museum these days and you’ll see people using their smartphones and cameras to take pictures of works of art, archeological finds, historical artifacts, and any other object that strikes their fancy. While taking a picture might seem like a good way to preserve the moment, new research suggests that museum-goers may want to put their cameras down. In a new study, psychological scientist Linda Henkel of Fairfield University presents data showing that participants had worse memory for objects, and for specific object details, when they took photos of them. The findings are published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.
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Bra Sensors Could Monitor Overeating
Mashable: Recent studies show that up to half of the U.S. population complains that they eat more when they are stressed, a condition that has also led to high rates of obesity -– and often a negative cycle of eating more, gaining weight and then getting stressed out about gaining weight -– especially during Thanksgiving. Researchers have been designing new kinds of ways to help anxious overeaters reduce this habit, or at least make them aware of when it’s happening.
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Liberals, conservatives differ in estimating consensus within their group
MinnPost: As I’ve mentioned before in this column, recent years have seen an explosion of research into the psychological underpinnings of the ideological differences between liberals and conservatives. These studies have found in general that conservatives tend to be more fearful of threats and losses, less tolerant of ambiguity, and more likely to value order, structure and stability. They are also more likely to develop punitive judgments about people who violate social norms. Liberals, on the other hand, tend to be more open to new experiences, more accepting of ambiguity and change, and more egalitarian in their attitudes toward others.
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How to Raise Thankful Kids
Slate: A few nights ago, after cleaning up from the play date I had organized for my 2½-year-old, changing his diaper, and refilling his water, I was about to start cooking him dinner before giving him a bath when the subject of Thanksgiving came up. He didn’t know what it was, so I tried to explain it to him. But somewhere between It’s a special day when we all think about how grateful we are for what we have and So, basically, it’s all about giving thanks, my son took off to terrorize our dog, and I was left stirring pasta that, five minutes later, I had to remind my son to thank me for.
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New Research From Psychological Science
Read about the latest research published in Psychological Science: Below-Baseline Suppression of Competitors During Interference Resolution by Younger but Not Older Adults M. Karl Healey, K. W. Joan Ngo, and Lynn Hasher Researchers have argued that successful retrieval of a memory requires suppression of competing information. The authors examined the suppression abilities of older and younger adults using a novel paradigm that allowed them to study below-baseline suppression, which is considered a hallmark of true suppression effects.
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Cell Phones on Planes? Forget About Getting Work Done
Last month the US Federal Communications Commission announced that it may allow airlines to experiment with permitting passengers to use cell phones during flights. That’s good news if you need to make some business calls during a long trip. The downside is that you’ll have to listen to other passengers gab away on their own handhelds — something you already endure if you commute on a train or bus to work. But aren’t conversations between two of your fellow passengers just as distracting or annoying? And what about the screaming baby in the row behind you?
