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Why Can’t My Computer Understand Me?
The New Yorker: Hector Levesque thinks his computer is stupid—and that yours is, too. Siri and Google’s voice searches may be able to understand canned sentences like “What movies are showing near me at seven o’clock?,” but what about questions—“Can an alligator run the hundred-metre hurdles?”—that nobody has heard before? Any ordinary adult can figure that one out. (No. Alligators can’t hurdle.) But if you type the question into Google, you get information about Florida Gators track and field. Other search engines, like Wolfram Alpha, can’t answer the question, either. Watson, the computer system that won “Jeopardy!,” likely wouldn’t do much better.
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Kids Involved in Bullying Grow Up To Be Poorer, Sicker Adults
NPR: Bullied children and kids who bully others have more health problems when they grow up than kids who aren't part of the bullying cycle, a study finds. They're also more likely to have financial problems, including difficulty keeping a job. The findings run counter to a still-widespread notion that bullying is a childhood rite of passage with little lasting harm, the researchers say. "These kids are continuing to have significant problems in their lives, years after the bullying has stopped," says William Copeland, an associate professor at Duke University School of Medicine and a co-author of the study, which was published in Psychological Science.
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Having a messy desk makes you ‘more creative’
The Telegraph: Working at a messy desk may actually help you think more creatively, according to a new scientific study. Scientists found that being surrounded by clutter can promote creative thinking and stimulate new ideas. In contrast, working at a clean and prim desk may promote healthy eating, generosity and conventionality. The new study was conducted by psychological scientist Professor Kathleen Vohs and fellow researchers at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. They mapped the behaviour of people working on messy and clean desks with a series of experiments. Read the whole story: The Telegraph
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Why do we feel schadenfreude?
CNN: When other people suffer misfortunes, we feel sorry for them. Or do we? More than we probably want to admit, we sometimes are secretly pleased. Does a Red Sox fan feel happy to see a Yankee fan miserable over a humiliating loss? Would a Democrat ever tire of watching replays of Mitt Romney's Etch A Sketch moments? Do you find yourself consuming the tabloid news, riveted by coverage of disasters in the gossip columns? ... Social neuroscientists Mina Cikara, Matthew Botvinick, and Susan Fiske in a study published in Psychological Science provided more corroborating evidence for schadenfreude using sports fans rather than political junkies. Read the whole story: CNN
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Falsifying memories
The Guardian: As a Ph.D. student, the young Elizabeth Loftus wasn't captivated by calculus: "I used to sit in the back of the seminars, kind of bored, writing letters to my Uncle Joe, or hemming skirts or whatever". The only girl enrolled on Stanford's mathematical psychology graduate program, she was voted the least likely to succeed in psychology by her peers, but she went on to become one of the most highly cited psychologists of all time – and also one of the most controversial. Here's my profile of her, in the current issue of Nature. In the 1970s, Loftus published a series of influential studies about the fallibility of eyewitness testimony.
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“Precisely right. No doubt. Trust me.”
As a general rule, we tend to value confidence in other people, especially in the “experts” who help us with important decisions in life. Who wants a financial advisor who hesitates in his judgments, or a physician who waffles on every diagnosis and prescription? I want my lawyer to look me in the eye and speak with certainty about the law, and I look for consistency and self-assurance in politicians and leaders. Our decisions in these realms can have profound consequences, so we don’t want to take our cues from the wishy-washy. Fortunately, these experts are all people, and people offer us cues.
