-
Going Through the Motions Improves Dance Performance
Expert ballet dancers seem to glide effortlessly across the stage, but learning the steps is both physically and mentally demanding. New research suggests that dance marking -- loosely practicing a routine by “going through the motions” -- may improve the quality of dance performance by reducing the mental strain needed to perfect the movements. The new findings, published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, suggest that marking may alleviate the conflict between the cognitive and physical aspects of dance practice, allowing dancers to memorize and repeat steps more fluidly.
-
Ein Gorilla in der Lunge (A gorilla in the lungs)
Suddeutsche Zeitung: Das Offensichtliche trägt ein zotteliges Kostüm, stellt sich in die Mitte des Bildes und trommelt sich auf die Brust. Und was passiert? Die meisten Probanden dieses längst klassischen Tests von 1999 übersehen die Frau im Gorillakostüm, weil sie mit einer Aufgabe beschäftigt sind. Die Teilnehmer dieser Studie der Psychologen Daniel Simons und Christopher Chabris zählten die Pässe, die drei Basketballspieler in weißen T-Shirts einander zuspielten. Eine fordernde Aufgabe, denn es waren auch drei Spieler in schwarzen Hemden im Bild, die ebenfalls einen Ball hin und herwarfen.
-
About-Face: Rethinking Emotions
wbur: Nearly a half-century ago, a psychologist named Paul Ekman set out to see if human beings, from Papua New Guinea to Pittsburgh, showed emotions in the same way. He went around the world, showing photographs of faces and asked people to identify the emotions shown: fear, sadness, anger, disgust, surprise. What he found, in short, was that emotions are universal. It became one of the most recognized psychological works in the world. The findings are in the first chapter in most psychology textbooks. They’re the basis for the multimillion-dollar industry built on studying facial expressions, taught to FBI agents, marketing executives, cops and spies. And they might be all wrong.
-
When Good Pictures Happen to Bad People: Why We Hate That We Like The Rolling Stone Cover
TIME: His dark eyes stare straight at the lens, his hair tousled so it falls just-so to one side, just as any teen idol or rock star would want to debut on a national magazine cover. He’s called a “monster,” but the Rolling Stone cover image of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev shows anything but such a beast. And that’s why people are so uncomfortable with it. … While seeing an attractive picture of a villainous person isn’t likely to change our opinion of that individual’s egregious acts, as the uproar over the image indicates, it could lead us to feel some emotions that we may not think are appropriate.
-
2013 APS Award Address: Diane F. Halpern
Our government is broken. Negativity toward Congress is at an all-time high, with hyperpartisanship as the new bigotry in the US. In this address, Halpern will use the lens of psychological science to view the problem and to suggest corrective actions that we can take to reduce it.
-
2013 APS Award Address: Elaine F. Walker
Research on the origins of serious mental illness has benefited greatly from advances in developmental neuroscience. With these advances, we now have a clearer picture of the complex interplay between environmental factors and brain development. Contemporary research on the origins of serious mental illness has drawn on this knowledge base and yielded important findings about the confluence of factors that give rise to mental disorders. This presentation will describe the major trends in these new findings and their implications for future perspectives on mental health.
