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Turn Off the Phone (and the Tension)
The New York Times: One recent sweltering afternoon, a friend and I trekked to a new public pool, armed with books, sunglasses and icy drinks, planning to beat the heat with a swim. But upon our arrival, we had an unwelcome surprise: no cellphones were allowed in the pool area. The ban threw me into a tailspin. I lingered by the locker where I had stashed my phone, wondering what messages, photos and updates I might already be missing. After walking to the side of the pool and reluctantly stretching out on a towel by the water, my hands ached for my phone.
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Drinking Too Much? Blame Your Glass
Wired: Before you down that pint, check the shape of your glass — you might be drinking more beer than you realize. According to a new study of British beer drinkers, an optical illusion caused by the shape of a curved glass can dramatically increase the speed at which we swill. Binge drinking is a growing problem in the United Kingdom, particularly among young people, says experimental psychologist Angela Attwood of the University of Bristol.
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Having Heart: Can We Rethink Life’s Stresses?
The Huffington Post: Imagine that you are at the top of a ski slope, about to make a run. It's a challenging slope, black diamond--steep and narrow, lots of trees. Plus it's windy, and there's that treacherous drop-off on the right. You're an inexperienced skier, not a novice but not at all confident that you belong in such extreme terrain. Your heart is pounding and your gut is tight. Now imagine that you're on top of the very same slope, but you are a skilled downhill racer, an Olympic contender. You're sure you know how to attack this slope--you've done it many times before--but even so, your heart is pounding and butterflies are fluttering in your gut.
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Who (and What) Can You Trust? How Non-Verbal Cues Can Predict a Person’s (and a Robot’s) Trustworthiness
People face this predicament all the time—can you determine a person’s character in a single interaction? Can you judge whether someone you just met can be trusted when you have only a few minutes together? And if you can, how do you do it? Using a robot named Nexi, Northeastern University psychology professor David DeSteno and collaborators Cynthia Breazeal from MIT’s Media Lab and Robert Frank and David Pizarro from Cornell University have figured out the answer. The findings will be published in the journal Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.
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Can speaking a second language make you a better leader?
The Washington Post: One thing we definitely won’t be hearing out of Mitt Romney’s mouth in his much-anticipated acceptance speech at this week’s convention is anything spoken in French. It’s been the odd subject of primary-season ridicule, as well as attack ads from the left, that the candidate has — wait for it — good foreign language skills. Quelle horreur! But a post from last week’s Harvard Business Review blog got me thinking: Can speaking a foreign language make you a better leader?
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How Video Games Could Improve Our Vision
The New York Times: The developmental psychologist Daphne Maurer made headlines this year with research suggesting that people born with cataracts could improve their eyesight by playing Medal of Honor, the “first-person shooter” video game. But her fame goes far beyond the video screen. Dr. Maurer, 56, director of the Visual Development Lab at McMaster University in Ontario, is an author, with her husband, Charles, of the pioneering 1988 book “The World of the Newborn,” an inventory of what babies sense and experience. In recent years she has been directing a study tracking infants born with visual impairments into later life.
