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Fearful expressions help pin-point danger
The Telegraph: Researchers found that the expressions people pull when they are frightened enlarge their visual field whilst simultaneously signalling to others around them where to look for threats. Therefore the expressions are functional in ways that directly benefit both the person who makes the expression and the person who observes it, it is claimed. The findings show that widened eyes provide a wider visual field which can help us to locate potential threats in our environment. These widened eyes also help to send a clearer gaze signal telling observers to "look there" - which may enhance their ability to locate the same threat, as well.
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Are Doctors Diagnosing Too Many Kids with ADHD?
Scientific American: A German children's book from 1845 by Heinrich Hoffman featured “Fidgety Philip,” a boy who was so restless he would writhe and tilt wildly in his chair at the dinner table. Once, using the tablecloth as an anchor, he dragged all the dishes onto the floor. Yet it was not until 1902 that a British pediatrician, George Frederic Still, described what we now recognize as attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Since Still's day, the disorder has gone by a host of names, including organic drivenness, hyperkinetic syndrome, attention-deficit disorder and now ADHD.
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Why We Don’t See Ourselves as Others Do
Discovery News: In a recent Dove ad, an FBI forensic artist sketched a series of women based purely on the way they described themselves and again as others described them. The artist could only hear their voices, not see their faces. A video about the experiment, which has been viewed on YouTube more than 22 million times and counting, revealed stark difference between the way the women saw themselves and the way others saw them. Across the board, the self-described portraits were the least attractive -- suggesting, according to the Dove marketing team, that we are all more beautiful than we think we are. So, why can’t we see ourselves as we really are? ...
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Super-Smart Kids Become Super-Successful Adults
Students with profound mathematical and verbal reasoning skills at age 13 garner more awards, gather more grant money, have more patents, write more prolifically, are more likely to graduate with doctoral degrees, and are more likely to hold tenured positions at the best universities in the world, according to new research published in Psychological Science. Psychological scientists Harrison Kell, David Lubinski, and Camilla Benbow of Vanderbilt University were interested in finding out just how successful super smart 13-year-olds would be later in life.
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New Research From Psychological Science
Read about the latest research published in Psychological Science. The Curse of Planning: Dissecting Multiple Reinforcement-Learning Systems by Taxing the Central Executive A. Ross Otto, Samuel J. Gershman, Arthur B. Markman, and Nathaniel D. Daw Under what conditions do individuals rely on model-based rather than model-free reinforcement-learning systems? The researchers had participants complete a multistep choice paradigm. On some trials, participants had to simultaneously perform a secondary task designed to tax working memory resources.
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Various Ways You Might Accidentally Get Drunk
The Atlantic: I don’t know what’s wrong with me!” Having cast your merlot across your boss’s sweater, you futilely thrust a napkin in her direction. You’re no stranger to a drink. Why now—at the company picnic—has that second glass gone to your head? Most of us know, for better or for worse, that drinking on an empty stomach, or while on prescription medications, can leave us unduly inebriated. Less familiar is a series of external cues that may determine how much we’re affected by alcohol and other substances. Shepard Siegel, a professor emeritus of psychology, neuroscience, and behavior at McMaster University in Ontario, coined the term situational specificity of tolerance in 1976.
