Life is just a theory
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reblogged: fateamenabletochange
The World’s Quietest Room
Scientists at Minneapolis’ Orfield Labs created their own soundless room, an anechoic chamber. Their studies have found that when putting subjects within the chamber, they begin to hallucinate within 30 minutes.
With an average quiet room having a sound level of 30 decibels, the anechoic chamber’s sound level is -9 decibels. The ceiling, floor, and walls of the chamber absorb sound rather than have it bounce off as normal objects do. The chamber is so quiet that the subjects can even hear their own organs functioning.
Although extremely interesting, the experience is rather unpleasant. Not one subject has spent more than 45 minutes in the chamber alone.
Leaving a person to only their thoughts, the chamber could drive them insane.
Mar
3rd, 2013
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reblogged: paraphyletic
To Get the Best Look at a Person’s Face, Look Just Below the Eyes
They say that the eyes are the windows to the soul. However, to get a real idea of what a person is up to, according to UC Santa Barbara researchers Miguel Eckstein and Matt Peterson, the best place to check is right below the eyes. Their findings are published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.
“It’s pretty fast, it’s effortless –– we’re not really aware of what we’re doing,” said Miguel Eckstein, professor of psychology in the Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences. Using an eye tracker and more than 100 photos of faces and participants, Eckstein and graduate research assistant Peterson followed the gaze of the experiment’s participants to determine where they look in the first crucial moment of identifying a person’s identity, gender, and emotional state.
“For the majority of people, the first place we look at is somewhere in the middle, just below the eyes,” Eckstein said. One possible reason could be that we are trained from youth to look there, because it’s polite in some cultures. Or, because it allows us to figure out where the person’s attention is focused.
However, Peterson and Eckstein hypothesize that, despite the ever-so-brief –– 250 millisecond –– glance, the relatively featureless point of focus, and the fact that we’re usually unaware that we’re doing it, the brain is actually using sophisticated computations to plan an eye movement that ensures the highest accuracy in tasks that are evolutionarily important in determining flight, fight, or love at first sight.
Nov
27th, 2012
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reblogged: jtotheizzoe
Researchers Revisit Famous Stanford Marshmallow Test With Added Test of Reliability
The “Stanford Marshmallow Experiment” will probably go down as the cutest psychological test ever devised. Sit a child in a room with one marshmallow, telling them that they can have two when you come back if they don’t eat the first. It’s a test of “delayed gratification”. Here is a video of the original test in its adorable glory.
An updated version of the test added a test for how kids viewed the reliability of adults. When they were given reason not to trust the adults running the test, it seriously affected whether they ate the marshmallow. They may not be able to resist a delicious sugary treat, but kids are a pretty good judge of character.
(via Science, Space & Robots)
Oct
17th, 2012
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reblogged: jtotheizzoe
A Rainbow Is A Song: The Wild, Curious & Wonderful World of Synesthesia
On a late winter day in 1922, the sound of a gun shot resounded with a loud boom in the hills surrounding the house of three-year-old Edgar Curtis. The sound itself wasn’t out of the ordinary, since the Curtises lived near a firing range. What was extraordinary was the question the boy turned to ask his mother: “What is that big, black noise?”
The cross-blending of the senses, hearing colors or tasting words … that’s synesthesia. Once thought to be quite rare, neuroscientists such as David Eagleman estimate as much as 4% of the population may have some form. More at the link above, including a video interview with Eagleman.
Think you might be a synesthete? Take the test.
Jul
29th, 2012
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Sharing Opinions Feels at Least as Good as Earning Money
“If you enjoy sharing all your likes and dislikes on Facebook, you’re definitely not alone: research finds that broadcasting personal opinions gives people the same sense of reward as earning money. “
In other words, let’s talk about ME! Specifically, my latest from Sci Am 60-Second Science.
May
10th, 2012
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Would you make the same decisions in a foreign language as you would in your native tongue? It may be intuitive that people would make the same choices regardless of the language they are using, or that the difficulty of using a foreign language would make decisions less systematic. We discovered, however, that the opposite is true: Using a foreign language reduces decision-making biases.
—The Foreign-Language Effect (via @vaughanbell)
The foreign-language effect on decision making is most likely determined by multiple factors that increase psychological distance and promote deliberation. Perhaps the most impor- tant mechanism for our effect is the reduction in emotional resonance that is associated with using a foreign language. Emotions and affect play an important role in decision making and in considerations of risk […]. An emotional reaction sometimes induces a less systematic decision. Making a decision in a foreign language could reduce the emotional reaction, thereby reducing bias. […]
So I guess it’s a good thing that recently I found myself thinking in English more and more often.
(via scipsy)
Apr
22nd, 2012
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QWERTY Keyboard Leads To Feelings About Words
Latest Sci Am 60-Second Science podcast:
Words with more letters on the right side of a QWERTY keyboard are thought of more positively than are words primarily typed on the left side. Sophie Bushwick reports.
Mar
9th, 2012
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