Psychology

Using a virtual pendulum and its real-world counterpart, scientists at the University of Illinois have created the first mixed reality state in a physical system. Through bi-directional instantaneous coupling, each pendulum “sensed” the other, their motions became correlated, and the two began swinging as one. “In a mixed reality state there is no clear boundary between the real system and the virtual system,” said U. of I. physicist Alfred Hubler. “The line blurs between what’s real and what isn’t.” In the experiment, Hubler and graduate student Vadas Gintautas connected a mechanical…

The U.S. legal system has long assumed that all testimony is not equally credible, that some witnesses are more reliable than others. In tough cases with child witnesses, it assumes adult witnesses to be more reliable. But what if the legal system had it wrong? Researchers Valerie Reyna, human development professor, and Chuck Brainerd, human development and law school professor-- both from Cornell University -- argue that like the two-headed Roman god Janus, memory is of two minds -- that is, memories are captured and recorded separately and differently in two distinct parts of the mind.…

A combination of negative mother-daughter relationships and low blood levels of serotonin, an important brain chemical for mood stability, may be lethal for adolescent girls, leaving them vulnerable to engage in self-harming behaviors such as cutting themselves. New University of Washington research indicates that these two factors in combination account for 64 percent of the difference among adolescents, primarily girls, who engage in self-harming behaviors and those who do not. “Girls who engage in self harm are at high risk for attempting suicide, and some of them are dying,” said Theodore…

A 10-cent pill doesn't kill pain as well as a $2.50 pill, even when they are identical placebos, according to a provocative study by Dan Ariely, a behavioral economist at Duke University. "Physicians want to think it's the medicine and not their enthusiasm about a particular drug that makes a drug more therapeutically effective, but now we really have to worry about the nuances of interaction between patients and physicians," said Ariely, whose findings appear as a letter in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Ariely and a team of collaborators at the Massachusetts Institute of…

My observations: 1. The first task I used to measure my mental function at frequent intervals (e.g., every 30 minutes) resembled an typical cognitive psych task. It wasn’t fun and I had to push myself to do it. 2. I made another test to do the same thing based on the lessons I drew from bilboquet. It consisted of tracking circles around the screen. It was mildly fun. 3. Trying to improve the second test, I made a third test, which consisted of “tossing” the cursor from one point to another — like throwing darts. In spite of its simplicity, it was/is a lot of fun. Slightly addictive. My…

Testosterone appears to protect people against eating disorders, providing further evidence that biological factors – and not just social influences – are linked to anorexia and bulimia, according to new research findings at Michigan State University. An ongoing, six-year study of 538 sets of twins in Michigan indicates that females who were in the womb with male twins have lower risk for eating disorder symptoms than females who were in the womb with female twins. Previous animal research has shown that females in the womb with males are exposed to higher levels of testosterone. “From these…

After I saw that flaxseed oil probably affected my circle-game performance, I wondered how to make its effect clearer. One possibility was to change the input device. I was using the trackpoint on my Thinkpad to move the cursor; what about the touchpad? Might be a more natural task. So I played the game several times using the touchpad. I was a lot slower, presumably because in ordinary usage I’ve used the trackpoint. I wondered: Could I get better on the touchpad? I made a little game to practice. Here is the initial screen. You begin by moving the cursor to the green circle. Then with one…

Drug addiction, sure. The first pleasurable drugs were probably discovered hundreds of thousands of years ago, if not much earlier. All cultures use drugs. Drugs physically reach the brain. But video game addiction? Video games are a millisecond old, compared to drugs. How did they get so potent so fast? Self-experimentation made me ask. Using an ordinary psychological test and a speeded arithmetic task, I discovered a fast-acting effect of flaxseed oil. About two hours after ingestion of 4 tablespoons, my brain worked detectably better. The effect wore off over several hours. To properly…

Some of the oldest tales and wisest mythology allude to the snake as a mischievous seducer, dangerous foe or powerful iconoclast; however, the legend surrounding this proverbial predator may not be based solely on fantasy. As scientists from the University of Virginia recently discovered, the common fear of snakes is most likely intrinsic. Evolutionarily speaking, early humans who were capable of surviving the dangers of an uncivilized society adapted accordingly. And the same can be said of the common fear of certain animals, such as spiders and snakes: The ancestors of modern humans were…

The type of robot chosen as a personal companion by participants at the University of Hertfordshire Science and Technology Research Institute’s (STRI) Showcase next week will very much depend on their personality type. This is a recent finding from Professor Kerstin Dautenhahn’s team at the university’s School of Computer Science, who took the robot out of the laboratory last year and had it living in a house nearby so that they could observe how it interacted with humans. People with extroverted personalities will choose more human-looking robots with facial features and a human-like voice…