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Looking For Trouble (And Seeing It)
I’ve known a few troublemakers over the years. These were guys with huge chips on both shoulders, who would gladly pick a fight if you looked at them wrong. And looking at them wrong could really mean doing nothing provocative at all, because they saw signs of hostility and threat where others did not, especially in others’ faces. They were literally looking for trouble. Scientists and clinicians are interested in the dynamic interaction of perception and aggression. Looking for trouble, and seeing it, may be a deep cognitive bias—a negativity bias—that distorts normal emotional processing.
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NIH Funding Opportunity: Research that Helps Cultivate Future Biomedical and Behavioral Scientists
Deadline: October 24, 2012, 5:00 PM (applicant organization’s local time) The National Institutes of Health announced a research project grant on Research to Understand and Inform Interventions that Promote the Research Careers of Students in Biomedical and Behavioral Sciences. This grant, issued by NIH’s National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS), supports research to test assumptions and hypotheses on social and behavioral factors that might aid potential interventions in increasing the number of students who are interested, motivated, and prepared to pursue biomedical and behavioral research careers.
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Thinking Abstractly May Help to Boost Self-Control
Many of the long term goals people strive for — like losing weight — require us to use self-control and forgo immediate gratification. And yet denying our immediate desires in order to reap future benefits
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Not just for Olympians: Mental strategy can help weekend athletes perform, or at least enjoy
The Washington Post: NEW YORK — Now that you’ve been watching the world’s top athletes compete in London, you may be inspired to go out and pursue your own sport at, um, less than an Olympic level. But even without their talent or practice regimens, you can take a lesson from what Olympians know: The mental game matters, too. Experts say even weekend warriors can benefit from the kinds of mental strategies elite athletes follow, things like following a routine or adopting a mantra to guide you through crucial movements. Megan Rapinoe has a routine at the Olympics.
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A Simple Trick to Improve Your Memory: ‘Wakeful Resting’
The Wall Street Journal: Just in case you don’t have any stroboscopic shades on hand, here’s a more homely way to improve your memory. Researchers, across two experiments, had groups of healthy elderly participants listen to two stories, with instructions to pay close attention to details, as they’d be asked about them later. Some of the participants, after hearing the stories, “were asked to rest quietly with their eyes closed in the darkened testing room for 10 min[utes] while the experimenter left ‘to prepare the next test.’” Others proceeded directly to a task in which they tried to spot the differences in two similar images.
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6 Foreign Languages Kids Should Learn
Parents Magazine: A growing number of parents are enrolling their babies, toddlers, and preschoolers in foreign-language classes -- and the numbers are expected to rise. "The popularity of such shows as Dora the Explorer, which teaches Spanish, and Ni Hao Kai-lan, which teaches Mandarin Chinese, suggests that parents want to be more proactive in jump-starting foreign language education for their children," says Yani A. Peyton, a bilingual mother of twins and the director of Fun with Foreign Language (funwithforeignlanguage.com) in Bel Air, MD. This should come as no surprise, since numerous studies show that speaking a second language boosts cognitive, memory, and listening skills.
