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How The Brain Keeps Track of What We’re Doing
“Working memory” is what we have to keep track of things moment to moment: driving on a highway and focusing on the vehicles around us, then forgetting them as we move on; remembering all the names at the dinner party while conversing with one person about her job. Most psychologists explain working memory with a “controlled attention” model: one flexible system that directs the brain’s focus to stimuli and tasks that are important and suppressing the rest. The capacity of working memory, they say, is limited by our ability to attend to only one thing at a time.
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Sneezes Provoke Fears Beyond Illness
Scientific American: With H1N1 on the rise and flu shots hard to find, few things are as terrifying as [sneeze sound]. But now a report in the journal Psychological Science suggests that coughing and sneezing can spread more than viruses. They also spread fear, of germs and more. So you’re on line for a movie when the guy behind you lets loose a big, juicy [sneeze sound]. Maybe you hold your breath, or maybe you decide to skip the flick and go home to scrub your hands like you’re Lady Macbeth . Well, psychologists got to wondering whether that well-grounded caution could snowball into an overarching skittishness about disease and other things. Read more: Scientific American
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Can riding thrill rides cure what ails you? Well, sort of
National Post: Next Monday in Toronto, people will begin paying $175 to go for a walk. The total distance travelled amounts to only 150 metres, but will leave participants short of breath. It’ll increase their heart rates and elevate their blood pressure. And from a medical perspective, it may be just what their bodies need. The “walk” is the CN Tower’s EdgeWalk, a tour around the observation pod’s outer edge. Located 356 metres (110 storeys) above the ground, the track that supports participants does not feature protective rails.
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Key To A Happy Marriage: Be Delusional
Forbes: Finally, a study that makes perfect sense. According to a study published in the May issue of the journal Psychological Science, the happiest marriages are the ones that are the most, well, delusional. As reported today in the Los Angeles Time the study shows that of 222 newlywed couples who were followed for three years, those who had an abnormally high level of “rose colored” glasses about each other were the only pairs who didn’t show a decline in their level of marriage happiness. Read more: Forbes
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Men in Grief Seek Others Who Mourn as They Do
The New York Times: In 1990, Sam and Gretchen Feldman cashed out on their share of a national chain of men’s apparel stores and retired to Martha’s Vineyard, Mass. There, they devoted their time to volunteer work and an active social calendar. The following years were golden ones for the Feldmans, but in 2007 Mrs. Feldman learned she had cancer. She died a year later. The Feldmans had been married 53 years, and Mr. Feldman’s grief was palpable to friends who knew him as a buoyant, resilient personality. “There was a huge hole in my life that no amount of activity could replace,” said Mr. Feldman, now 82.
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Smash the Ceiling
The New Yorker: In the past few years, the U.S. economy has been beset by the subprime meltdown, skyrocketing oil prices, the Eurozone debt crisis, and even the Tohoku earthquake. Now it’s staring at a new problem—a failure to raise the debt ceiling, which would almost certainly throw the economy back into recession. Unlike those other problems, however, this one would be wholly of our own making. If the economy suffers as a result, it’ll be what a soccer fan might call the biggest own goal in history. The truth is that the United States doesn’t need, and shouldn’t have, a debt ceiling. Every other democratic country, with the exception of Denmark, does fine without one.
