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Multibillion-dollar map of human brain might not be worth it
Los Angeles Times: The Obama administration is reportedly considering funding a multibillion-dollar effort to map the human brain. This so-called Brain Activity Map project is inspired by the success of the Human Genome Project in mapping the genetic code. The proposal was outlined in the journal Neuron last summer by a group of leading researchers, among them geneticist George Church of Harvard Medical School, one of the originators of the genome project. This is an endeavor with exciting potential, but we should think about the pros and the cons before proceeding.
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Is Giving the Secret to Getting Ahead?
The New York Times: Just after noon on a Wednesday in November, Adam Grant wrapped up a lecture at the Wharton School and headed toward his office, a six-minute speed walk away. Several students trailed him, as often happens; at conferences, Grant attracts something more like a swarm. Grant chatted calmly with them but kept up the pace. He knew there would be more students waiting outside his office, and he said, more than once, “I really don’t like to keep students waiting.” Grant, 31, is the youngest-tenured and highest-rated professor at Wharton. He is also one of the most prolific academics in his field, organizational psychology, the study of workplace dynamics.
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Forecasting Fox
The New York Times: In 2006, Philip E. Tetlock published a landmark book called “Expert Political Judgment.” While his findings obviously don’t apply to me, Tetlock demonstrated that pundits and experts are terrible at making predictions. But Tetlock is also interested in how people can get better at making forecasts. His subsequent work helped prompt people at one of the government’s most creative agencies, the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Agency, to hold a forecasting tournament to see if competition could spur better predictions. ... Five teams entered the tournament, from places like M.I.T., Michigan and Maryland.
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Seeing Happiness in Ambiguous Facial Expressions Reduces Aggressive Behavior
Encouraging young people at high-risk of delinquency to see happiness rather than anger in facial expressions appears to dampen their levels of anger and aggression
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Nikolaus Steinbeis
Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences www.cbs.mpg.de/staff/steinb-10018 What does your research focus on? I am a developmental psychologist and neuroscientist with a focus on social and affective processes, decisions, and abilities. Using neuroimaging techniques I try to characterize the structural and functional brain changes occurring during childhood and adolescence. I then use this information to see how it can account for the observed changes in social behavior and affective experience by means of paradigms derived in part from economic game theory and social psychology. What drew you to this line of research and why is it exciting to you?
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Nicholas Scurich
University of California, Irvine http://socialecology.uci.edu/faculty/nscurich What does your research focus on? Broadly speaking, I study psychology and law. The general theme of my research is judgment and decision making in the legal system. I also study violence risk assessment and risk communication. What drew you to this line of research and why is it exciting to you? One person in particular drew me to this area of research. As an undergraduate majoring in physics, I took an elective course entitled Law and Psychology, which was taught by Tom Lyon (University of Southern California), a law professor/psychologist. By the third lecture, I had changed my major to Psychology.
