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They All Look the Same: Why we are Unable to Distinguish Faces of Other Races (and Sometimes Our Own)
There’s a troubling psychological phenomenon that just about everyone has experienced but few will admit to; having difficulty distinguishing between people of different racial groups. This isn’t merely a nod to the denigrating expression “they all look the same.” Indeed, the “cross-race effect” is one of the most well replicated findings in psychological research and can lead to embarrassment, social castigation, or the disturbingly common occurrence of eye-witness misidentifications.
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Ability to “Tell the Difference” Declines as Infants Age
A new article published in the August issue of Current Directions in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, suggests that infants fine-tune their visual and auditory systems to stimuli during the first year of life, essentially “weeding out” unnecessary discriminatory abilities. Lisa Scott, a psychologist at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and her colleagues examined several studies suggesting that infants begin to hone their perceptual discrimination to environmentally relevant distinctions by 9-12 months of age. At the same time, the discrimination of environmentally irrelevant, or less frequently encountered, distinctions declines.
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The Unexpected Consensus Among Voting Methods
Historically, the theoretical social choice literature on voting procedures in economics and political science routinely highlights worst case scenarios, emphasizing the inexistence of a universally ‘best’ voting method. Indeed, the Impossibility Theorem of Nobel Laureate Kenneth Arrow proved that no voting method can ever satisfy all of his requirements simultaneously. But as the U.S. Presidential election of 2000 reminds us, voting methods continue to court controversy, and there are many efforts under way to reform the electoral system at all levels of government.
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Seeing Colors: New Study Sheds Light on Sensory System Quirk
In the psychological phenomenon known as “synesthesia,” individuals’ sensory systems are a bit more intertwined than usual. Some musicians, for example, report seeing colors when musical notes are played. One of the most common forms is grapheme-color synesthesia, in which letters or numbers (collectively called “graphemes”) are highlighted with particular colors. Although synesthesia has been well documented, it is unknown whether these experiences, reported as vivid and realistic, are actually being perceived or if they are a byproduct of some other psychological mechanism such as memory.
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My Bad! Why We Feel Guilt in the First Place
Guilt plays a vital role in the regulation of social behavior. That worried feeling in our gut often serves as the impetus for our stab at redemption. However, psychologists have trouble agreeing on the function of this complex emotion. On one hand, the punitive feeling of guilt may keep you from repeating the same transgressive behavior in the future, which psychologists call “withdrawal motivation.” Conversely, some researchers view the function of guilt in a societal context, in that; it keeps people’s behavior in line with the moral standards of their community.
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The End of Barroom Brawls: Study Shows Alcohol can Reduce Aggression
The link between alcohol and aggression is well known. What’s not so clear is just why drunks get belligerent. What is it about the brain-on-alcohol that makes fighting seem like a good idea? And do all intoxicated people get more aggressive? Or does it depend on the circumstances? University of Kentucky psychologist Peter Giancola and his student Michelle Corman decided to explore these questions in the laboratory. One theory about alcohol and aggression is that drinking impairs the part of the brain involved in allocating our limited mental resources—specifically attention and working memory.
