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Fierce beliefs: built on ignorance
The Boston Globe: Do you have a strong opinion about Obamacare? Great. Now, please explain how it works. If that question gives you pause, it might also serve a purpose: A new study suggests that the intense political polarization affecting this country depends on ignorance, and that drawing our attention to how little we know could actually help us get along. Researchers asked people to indicate their position on one of several policies (e.g., cap and trade, flat tax) and then asked them to explain the mechanics of how the policy worked or didn’t work. Read the whole story: The Boston Globe
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About the Authors
Madhulika Agarwal, MD, MPH serves as the Deputy Under Secretary for Health for Policy and Services for the Department of Veterans Affairs. Her organization’s vision is to lead policy and services development to ensure the best possible health care outcomes for our Nation’s Veterans.
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Seeing Happiness In Facial Expressions, Instead Of Anger, Can Lessen Aggression
The Huffington Post: How you perceive emotions in others can have a real impact on how you feel yourself, according to a new study. The new research, published in the journal Psychological Science, shows that training people to be biased to recognize happiness instead of anger in a facial expression can help to lower their own feelings of aggression and anger. "Our results provide strong evidence that emotion processing plays a causal role in anger and the maintenance of aggressive behavior," study researcher Marcus Munafo, a professor at the university, said in a statement.
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This is your brain on music
CNN: Whether you are rocking out to Macklemore & Ryan Lewis in your car or reading with Bach in your bedroom, music has a special ability to pump us up or calm us down. Scientists are still trying to figure out what's going on in our brains when we listen to music and how it produces such potent effects on the psyche. "We're using music to better understand brain function in general," said Daniel Levitin, a prominent psychologist who studies the neuroscience of music at McGill University in Montreal. Three studies published this month explore how the brain responds to music.
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Mindfulness Could Improve College Students’ Testing Ability, Study Finds
The Huffington Post: As if the stress-relieving, healthifying effects of mindfulness weren't enough, a new study shows it could actually help students perform better on tests by boosting their memory and reading comprehension skills. The study, published in the journal Psychological Science, shows that mindfulness training could help college students do better on the verbal reasoning part of the GRE (Graduate Record Examination, an admissions test commonly used for graduate school).
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Can Neuroscience Explain Innovation?
Forbes: We continue our conversation with Janet Crawford, a pioneer in applying neuroscience to improve business performance. In today’s part, we discuss the interplay between human biology and innovation. To read . Can you give an example of how biology affects the innovation process?
