Psychology

Unexpected context, So much for inventing motors or figuring out Autism Found on the web, from Stumble-upon So much for solving autism, inventing computors (Alan Turing 1912-1954) , motors or simply overcoming the curse of Rain Man , if Joshua Bell could not pull off the trick ,I can't either Washington, DC Metro Station on a cold January morning. A man with a violin plays six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time approx. 2 thousand people passed through the station, most of them on their way to work. After 3 minutes a middle-aged man noticed there was a musician playing. He…

A very interesting question has been posed by colleague Mark Changizi (see his fascinating blogs at www.science20.com) related to brain size as it relates to body size. He presents good information that shows the rather constant relationship of brain size to body size. He asks the question, essentially, if bigger brains do not make for more intelligent animals, why are there bigger brains? One particularly intriguing statement refers to the fact that neuronal tissue is a rather expensive form of tissue, so if the neuronal tissue is not really needed, why is it…

Researchers from Jena University in Germany say it is not only painful memories and associations that put our pain memory on alert, words can do the trick as well. "Even verbal stimuli lead to reactions in certain areas of the brain", says Dr. Thomas Weiss from the Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena. As soon as we hear words like "tormenting", "gruelling" or "plaguing", those areas in the brain are being activated which process the corresponding pain. Using functional magnetic resonance tomography (fMRT), researchers investigated how healthy subjects processed words associated with…

    If you have ever wondered why we sleep, you are not alone. The puzzle of sleep and the question of why we sleep has been a much-researched topic yielding few really definitive answers. Sleep is a dormant state and some researchers have answered the question of why we sleep by stating that reparative forces occur during sleep...and that is why we sleep. However, just a bit of thought will find this common answer extremely unsatisfying. Why do we need to sleep to have repairs done? In fact, are not repairs going on continuously?     To answer the…

A new study from University of Utah psychologists suggests that most people are lousy drivers when talking on their cell phones. But a small group of people with an extraordinary ability to multitask can safely drive while chatting, according to a study in Psychonomic Bulletin and Review. These individuals – described by the researchers as "supertaskers" – constitute only 2.5 percent of the population. They are so named for their ability to successfully do two things at once: in this case, talk on a cell phone while operating a driving simulator without noticeable impairment. The finding is…

Scientists in Russia have been studying how to buy the best possible gift. This coincides with an exhibition of the worst presents received by residents in Yekaterinburg last week. High on the list of worst presents ever must be the following: "[an] unusual present was the money that belonged to a woman from Yekaterinburg. The woman’s husband was laid off on the eve of her birthday, and she gave him some money so he could get her a birthday present. On her birthday, the woman received a card with her own money enclosed." We don't need much science to calculate the poor woman's reaction. Other…

Not only do evil fast food companies make us fat and tempt our children with deceptive advertising, they also make us impatient, according to a new study in Psychological Science. In fact, mere exposure to fast food and related symbols can make us impatient, increasing preference for time saving products, and reducing willingness to save, the study found. "Fast food is one of many technologies that allow us to save time," says University of Toronto researcher Sanford DeVoe, "But the ironic thing is that by constantly reminding us of time efficiency, these technologies can lead us to feel…

Think yourself to orgasm - sounds natural enough......but not for everyone. Some people, injured and unable to feel their genitals may be helped by new research "The relation between the mind and sexual response is still fertile ground for investigation", says Barry Komisaruk, Professor of Psychology, Rutgers University One of the techniques that we’ve developed is to have the women in the scanner looking at their own brain activity in near real time. The question is, if we can see our own brain activity in near real time in specific regions, can we voluntarily increase the activity of that…

Someday, when man knows the sublevel picutre thoughts of his mind that makes his mind operate he will be privilaged to know what old autistics like me have figured out:our mind. If man could hook monitors to our brain and watch the hundreds upon thousands of thoughts of our sublevel thoughts form, he would realize we think in pictures. With monitors connected to our brains he would see just how many picutre thoughts it takes to form a sentance, the hoops the mind goes threw to form speech. All of this is internal below the surface, unless your stuck on a topic and forced to say I…

Feeling optimistic may actually help you maintain your health, say psychologists writing in Psychological Science. The authors claim they have found "the first evidence that changes in optimistic expectancies are accompanied by changes in immunity, as well as the first evidence for a mechanism by which this effect occurs." The conclusion is based on a study of how law students' expectations about their schooling affected their immune responses. Other studies have found that people who are optimistic about their health tend to do better. For example, people who are optimistic about heart…