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Predictable bias
The Boston Globe: IN A SERIES of experiments, people were asked about their impressions of a white man whose personality profile suggested that he was moderately racist or moderately sexist. Obviously, women should expect bias from a sexist individual, while African-Americans and Latinos should expect bias from a racist individual. But expectations of bias also crossed over. Compared with a nonprejudiced profile, the racist profile led white women to expect sexist bias, too, while the sexist profile led African-American and Latino men to expect racist bias. Read the whole story: The Boston Globe
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Language Lessons Start in the Womb
The New York Times: New research is teasing out more of the profoundly miraculous process of language learning in babies. And it turns out that even more is going on prenatally than previously suspected. By looking at international adoptees — babies who were adopted soon after birth and who grow up hearing a different language than what they heard in the womb — researchers can see how what babies hear before and soon after birth affects how they perceive sounds, giving new meaning to the idea of a “birth language.” Read the whole story: The New York Times
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Don’t be a Ross. Here’s how to keep your friends hooked when you speak
Hindustan Times: Do you feel like Ross Geller talking about dinosaurs every time you start narrating your personal experiences among friends? Does it look like your friends are getting bored while listening to your stories? If so, try saying things that are more familiar to them, suggests a research. “Our friends are actually a whole lot happier when we tell them what they already know because at least they understand what we’re talking about,” said Daniel T. Gilbert, psychological scientist at Harvard University. Read the whole story: Hindustan Times
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Preschool can provide a boost, but the gains can fade surprisingly fast
The Washington Post: States and the federal government spend more than $15 billion a year on preschool education. With that hefty price tag, we want early-childhood programs to work. And to reduce long-standing educational inequalities, we need them to work. So it’s encouraging when studies show that these types of interventions can give children a boost by the time they enter kindergarten. Unfortunately, our investments in many early-childhood programs may be based on an inflated sense of their promise. Even our best efforts often produce only ephemeral gains. Read the whole story: The Washington Post
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When Children Beat Adults at Seeing the World
The Wall Street Journal: A few years ago, in my book “The Philosophical Baby,” I speculated that children might actually be more conscious, or at least more aware of their surroundings, than adults. Lots of research shows that we adults have a narrow “spotlight” of attention. We vividly experience the things that we focus on but are remarkably oblivious to everything else. There’s even a term for it: “inattentional blindness.” I thought that children’s consciousness might be more like a “lantern,” illuminating everything around it. ...
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Ya Had to Be There: Science Confirms We’re Bad at Telling Stories
Live Science: Go ahead: Tell that same story about your college shenanigans the next time you're out with your friends. They'll thank you for it. A new study finds that people prefer hearing familiar stories to new ones, probably because people are generally such bad storytellers that brand-new tales are just confusing. "When our friends try to tell us about movies we've never seen or albums we've never heard, we usually find ourselves bored, confused and underwhelmed," study researcher Daniel Gilbert, a psychologist at Harvard University, said in a statement. Read the whole story: Live Science
