Psychology
Some metaphors are difficult to explain - if you have a child and use one and get asked what it means, and then get asked what the definition means, you know what we...mean...see how hard it can be to communicate?
They're even more difficult in sign language and a recent study on the use of metaphors in spoken language and various sign languages looks into the issue. The recent paper by Irit Meir of the University of Haifa examines the interrelations between two notions that play an important role in language and communication, iconicity and metaphor. Meir's study says that the…
Mark Hyman loves the case study; when one of his posts at Huffington Post deals with an almost magical healing he's engendered, well, chances are, there's gonna be a kid involved. This time up, it's Hyman curing autism cuz he's teh man.
Let's look at his first paragraph: "Imagine being the parent of a young child who is not acting normally and being told by your doctor that your child has autism, that there is no known cause, and there is no known treatment except, perhaps, some behavioral therapy."
Fortunately, I don't have to imagine this scenario; I can and do speak from…
The age-old dilemma: do you take your sig other's hints, buy that electronic picture frame, and load it with family highlights from holidays past (yawn)? Or do you go with your gut and get her the unexpected gift of a new XBox-360?
First to the hallowed halls of marketing psychology: In 1956, the psychologist Jack Brehm asked housewives to rank how much they wanted certain household items. Then Brehm asked them to choose between items they’d rated equally desirable, perhaps a vacuum cleaner and a dishwasher. Then Brehm asked the housewives to rank all the items again. In this second pass,…
We've all done it: we've blurted out something we wish we'd bitten back. We've made a face or indicated our displeasure or contempt when it would have been better to maintain the appearance of neutrality. We've all, I'm sure, written something we wish we could take back.
On the first two, speaking or physically expressing, I understand that the actions may be have been involuntary (nonverbal communication) or not reflected on (speech), so I am inclined to cut some slack. We have, according to Paul Ekman, refractory periods in which the emotion first begins and we are not capable of…
The social impairment of people with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) can have a profound impact on quality of life.
As part of their research, Eastern Virginia Medical School scientists say they have verified that a specific mouse strain, known as the BALB/c mouse, is a valid animal model of the limited sociability seen in persons with Autism. In the presence of another mouse, BALB/c mice move as far away as possible and do not interact as normal mice do, they say in much the same way people with autism often avoid making social contact with other people.
This finding gave…
As if neurotic people weren't already neurotic enough, they now have to be neurotic knowing their relationships and marriages have a lot more difficulty.
But a new study says if neurotic newlyweds have more sex, their marital satisfaction is as high as less neurotic counterparts. That's a science result we can all get behind!Neuroticism to eroticism
Neuroticism is the tendency to experience negative emotion and people who are high in it get upset easily, change their mood often and worry frequently. People who score high in neuroticism are also less satisfied in romance and…
Why does religion still exist? It is something we have pondered many times because its demise has been predicted for centuries. It turns out that religious people are happier, studies show, and that makes sense; answers to otherwise unsolvable puzzles are comforting and if you've ever been to an 'skeptic' conference, the only times they are happy are when they are making fun of religion so, technically, religion even makes atheists happier.
But a new sociology study says it isn't God or even theology that is the secret 'happiness' ingredient in religion. Instead, it…
Over at the Autism Blogs Directory, we have over 400 blogs and websites representing a diversity of views and opinions on autism and what it means to the individuals who have it and the family members who must cope with the challenges of raising autistic children. We have parents and autistic individuals who are firmly convinced that vaccines cause autism. We have staunchly pro-science bloggers. We have folks who believe in god, that everything happens for a reason, and that autistic individuals are sent by god to teach us; we also have atheists, agnostics, and lukewarm Baptists, I'm…
Women may regard love and affection and consideration as most important in a mate, but if research in African cichlid fish applies to humans, they are suppressing a more primitive instinct to like winners.
In African cichlid fish, even when a female shows a preference for a male, if witnesses him losing a fight with another male, her feelings toward him change. Areas of the female's brain associated with anxiety showed increased activity after witnessing an altercation. Of course, being a winner in the eyes of cognitively diverse human females can take many different forms…
Yesterday I mentioned David Cameron's plan to introduce a national happiness index in the UK. This is not a new idea, and surveys have been going on for decades, and in 2003 a study looked at some of this data in comparison to inequality.
This is a pretty simple study in principle - with two variables, measured in a few countries, and over a few time points. But the results all depend on:
1) Whether the variables can be accurately measured
2) Whether they are measured in the same way in different places and times
Here and there I've mentioned some of the work on measuring happiness…