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Scientists at Harvard University have found that humans can make difficult moral decisions using the same brain circuits as those used in more mundane choices related to money and food. These circuits, also found in other animals, put together two critical pieces of information: How good or bad are the things that might happen? What are the odds that they will happen, depending on one’s choice? The results suggest that complex moral decisions need not rely on a specific “moral sense.”
A new study shows the impact of alcohol intoxication on reasoning and problem-solving abilities and may explain why some people feel they have recovered enough to drive after drinking. The research, led by Peter J. Snyder, PhD, vice president of research for Lifespan, is the first to explore how these cognitive abilities are impacted during both rising and declining blood alcohol concentrations, at matched blood alcohol level concentrations, and how self-evaluation of recovery differs from actual recovery from impairment.
Whether it is sports, poker, or the high-stakes world of business, there are those who always find a way to win when there is money on the table. Now, for the first time, psychology researchers at Washington University in St. Louis are unraveling the workings of a novel brain network that may explain how these “money players” manage to keep their heads in the game. The results are published in the Journal of Neuroscience.
The most beautiful thing about humans, says Indiana University researcher S. Lee Hong, is that they are both ever-changing and sometimes prone to error. Yet humans are still extremely flexible and adaptable, managing the transition from one context to another almost seamlessly. His new study demonstrates how this adaptability boils down to a zero-sum game. Check the end of this report to download this open access article.
Children are natural psychologists. By the time they are in preschool, they understand that other people have desires, preferences, beliefs, and emotions. But how they learn this is not clear. A new study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, finds that children figure out another person’s preferences by using a topic you would think they do not encounter until college: statistics.
The ability to remember is not just to glimpse into the past; a sharp memory can help with creativity, productivity and even the ability to imagine the future, according to several psychologists. Sleep, aging and brain chemistry research were all discussed during several presentations on memory at the 118th Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association.
Anger is a negative emotion. But, like being happy or excited, feeling angry makes people want to seek rewards, according to a new study of emotion and visual attention. The researchers found that people who are angry pay more attention to rewards than to threats – the opposite of people feeling other negative emotions like fear. The research is published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.
Computerized brain fitness programs are known to help seniors improve their memory and focus. Now, a study led by researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University has found preliminary evidence that such programs may help frail seniors walk faster, potentially preventing disability and improving quality of life. Results appear in the July 19 online edition of the Journal of Gerontology.
How did we evolve the most loving brain on the planet? Humans are the most sociable species on earth – for better and for worse. On the one hand, we have the greatest capacities for empathy, communication, friendship, romance, complex social structures, and altruism. On the other, we have the greatest capacities for shaming, emotional cruelty, sadism, envy, jealousy, discrimination and other forms of dehumanization, and wholesale slaughter of our fellow humans.
A study by researchers at NYU Langone Medical Center have found that obese adolescents with type 2 diabetes have diminished cognitive performance and subtle abnormalities in the brain as detected by Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI). Identification of cognitive impairments as a complication of type 2 diabetes emphasizes the importance of addressing issues of inactivity and obesity, two important risk factors for the development of the disease among the young. The study appeared online in the journal Diabetologia on July 30, 2010.
Negative stereotypes not only jeopardize how members of stigmatized groups might perform on tests and in other skill-based acts, such as driving and golf putting, but they also can inhibit actual learning, according to a new study by Indiana University researchers. The study, “Stereotype threat prevents perceptual learning,” was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Early Edition. Co-authors are Richard M. Shiffrin, Kathryn L. Boucher, Katie Van Loo and Michael T. Rydell, all from IU.
When your mind drifts, it is hard to remember what was going on before you stopped paying attention. Now a new study has found that the effect is stronger when your mind drifts farther – to memories of an overseas vacation instead of a domestic trip, for example, or a memory in the more distant past. The study is published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.
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