Editor’s Selections: Faking It, Ptolemy, Universal Sound Markers, and Imitation
January 20th, 2011 Uncategorized 1 Comment
Krystal D’Costa selects interesting and notable ResearchBlogging.org posts in the social sciences, including anthropology, research, and philosophy. She blogs about the anthropology of urban life at Anthropology in Practice.
- At Design. Build. Play. Frautech investigates whether you can fake it til you make it. The author reports on the effects of assuming a high power stance versus a low power position, and finds some evidence to suggest that they way you carry yourself may matter.
- Alun has crafted a fantastic defense of 17th-century astronomy–and Ptolemy. He encourages readers to acknowledge the science of the times, and recognize the great strides that advances truly represented.
- At Speech and Science, Maria Wolters dissects a study claiming to have identified sounds that may be universally associated with happiness and sadness. She skillfully walks readers through the methodology, pointing out alternatives and possible areas for scrutiny.
- And finally, Michael Plyer of A Replicated Typo discusses the role of imitation in our evolutionary history. The post highlights overimitation as a sign of our tendency toward social norms.
I’ll be back next Thursday with more research from the social sciences.
