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Got Pain? A Virtual Swim With Dolphins May Help Melt It Away
Virtual reality is not new. But, as people search for alternative ways to manage pain — and reduce reliance on pills — VR is attracting renewed attention. Imagine, for a moment you've been transported to a sunlit lagoon. And, suddenly, it's as if you're immersed in the warm water and swimming. That's what Tom Norris experiences when he straps on his VR headset. "It's fantastic, I really feel like I'm there," says Norris, who is 70 years old, retired from the military, and lives in Los Angeles with his wife. As dolphins frolic and swim by in the virtual scene, "I get a strong feeling of pleasure, relaxation and peace," he says. ...
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New Research From Clinical Psychological Science
A sample of research exploring: cognitive bias modification to target two behaviors; positive affect as a buffer between chronic stress and emotional disorder symptoms; reward sensitivity and trait disinhibition as predictors of substance use problems; and culture as a mediator between appraisals and PTSD symptoms.
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Suicide attempts are hard to anticipate. A study that tracks teens’ cellphone use aims to change that
Every Wednesday afternoon, an alert flashes on the cellphones of about 50 teenagers in New York and Pennsylvania. Its questions are blunt: "In the past week, how often have you thought of killing yourself?" "Did you make a plan to kill yourself?" "Did you make an attempt to kill yourself?" The 13- to 18-year-olds tap their responses, which are fed to a secure server. They have agreed, with their parents' support, to something that would make many adolescents cringe: an around-the-clock recording of their digital lives.
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Seeing is feeling – How Artificial Intelligence is helping us understand emotions
Recently published research supported by NIMH and NIDA sheds light on how our brains process visual information with emotional features by incorporating machine-learning innovations and human brain-imaging. The researchers started with an existing neural network, AlexNet, which enables computers to recognize objects and adapted it using prior research that identified stereotypical emotional responses to images. This new network, EmoNet, was then asked to categorize 25,000 images into 20 categories such as craving, sexual desire, horror, awe and surprise. EmoNet could accurately and consistently categorize 11 of the emotion types and reliably rate the emotional intensity of the images.
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How Connections with Coworkers Affect Our Reaction to Toxic Management
Differences in attachment style can drive the way we bond with our colleagues, making all the difference under unsupportive, or outright abusive, management.
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Video: APS Panel Discusses Nexus of Impact and Life
Can social science’s impact be boiled down to improving and enriching lives? In recent years, there has been an uptake in requirements from funders across the globe to prove impact of scholarly work, and simultaneously, intensified scrutiny about the value of social and behavioral science.
