Psychology posts
- April 1, 2009
- 04:11 PM
- 1,529 views
Human children versus apes: Who's better at tracking hidden objects, and why
by Dave Munger in Cognitive Daily
Take a look at this astonishing (and adorable) video demonstrating how a baby acquires object permanence.
At 6 months old, the baby can see and reach for an object, but as soon as it is hidden, she doesn't seem to realize it's there. The baby is interested and excited by the objects, but when they're not visible, it's as if her memory has been wiped clean.
By 10 months, the phenomenon has vanished and the baby behaves like any older child would, clearly realizing that the book is hidden und........ Read more »
Okamoto-Barth, S., & Call, J. (2008) Tracking and inferring spatial rotation by children and great apes. Developmental Psychology, 44(5), 1396-1408. DOI: 10.1037/a0012594
- April 1, 2009
- 01:35 PM
- 1,066 views
Is less always more? Testing the limits of the choice paradox
by Christian Jarrett in BPS Research Digest
When traditional economics claimed that consumers can only gain from having more choice, the supermarkets listened - just look at the explosion in breakfast cereal offerings! But psychology has gone and complicated things by showing that more choice can often leave people feeling less satisfied and less likely to make a purchase.Consider the seminal paper by Iyengar and Lepper (pdf) that showed 30 per cent of participants offered a choice of 6 jams bought one, compared with just 3 per cent of pa........ Read more »
Scheibehenne, B., Greifeneder, R., & Todd, P. (2009) What moderates the too-much-choice effect?. Psychology and Marketing, 26(3), 229-253. DOI: 10.1002/mar.20271
- April 1, 2009
- 10:35 AM
- 1,242 views
Expressive communication in children with severe autism
by Nestor Lopez-Duran in Translating Autism
Harold L Doherty, an autism advocate and parent of a child with autism, has commented on the limited amount of research conducted with kids with severe autism. Although this is an empirical question, and I have not seen data confirming this possible trend, Mr. Doherty is most likely right, in that it appears that children with severe autism are underrepresented in today's published research. For
Visit www.translatingautism.com for the full post.... Read more »
Chiang, H. (2009) Naturalistic observations of elicited expressive communication of children with autism: An analysis of teacher instructions. Autism, 13(2), 165-178. DOI: 10.1177/1362361308098513
- April 1, 2009
- 10:33 AM
- 1,139 views
A healthy love of red: flushing faces and healthy appearance
by Evil Monkey in Neurotopia
Ok, I was GOING to post this last night. But Sci's laptop had epic internet fail. Hopefully it will work again anon. As it is, you're getting your post late. Sci was going to do something for April 1. Too late now!
In the meantime, let's talk about flushing. Being female, Sci had a certain amount of exposure to things like makeup growing up, and the one thing I could never understand was this:
(Photo courtesy of makeuptips.com)
Blush. I could never understand blush. If I put on too........ Read more »
Stephen, I., Coetzee, V., Law Smith, M., & Perrett, D. (2009) Skin Blood Perfusion and Oxygenation Colour Affect Perceived Human Health. PLoS ONE, 4(4). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0005083
- March 31, 2009
- 04:14 PM
- 1,001 views
Atheism and IQ: explained by "The Savannah Principle"?
The correlation between atheism and IQ is being talked about again because the study I blogged about last year (by Richard Lynn) has just been published. PZ Myers simply dismisses it - there's no correlation at all, he thinks (although he hasn't read the paper).But there's another, rather more interesting paper out on the topic. It goes further than Lynn by actually trying to take into account some of the other factors that could explain the correlation.The author, Satoshi Kanazawa, is an evolut........ Read more »
Kanazawa, S. (2009) IQ and the values of nations. Journal of Biosocial Science, 1. DOI: 10.1017/S0021932009003368
- March 31, 2009
- 03:45 PM
- 1,514 views
Mirror images: You don't perceive the reflection, just the object
by Dave Munger in Cognitive Daily
Take another look at this picture of the Rokeby Venus from last week's post on mirrors in art:
Now, imagine you're actually in the room with Venus, as depicted in this painting. You suspend your astonishment long enough to conduct a quick test of the principle of how a flat mirror works. Consider what would happen to Venus' face in the mirror as you approach it. As you walk towards the mirror, would the proportion of the reflection taken up by Venus's face increase or decrease? In the paintin........ Read more »
Lawson, R., Bertamini, M., & Liu, D. (2007) Overestimation of the projected size of objects on the surface of mirrors and windows. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 33(5), 1027-1044. DOI: 10.1037/0096-1523.33.5.1027
- March 31, 2009
- 02:33 PM
- 1,937 views
Feeling the fear - and not even thinking about doing it
by Adiemusfree in Healthskills: Skills for Healthy Living
Anxiety sensitivity (AS) is basically the fear of feeling anxious, or feeling anxiety-related symptoms. Typically, when people are fearful of their own symptoms of anxiety, they’ll work to avoid getting into situations where they may experience these symptoms. AS has been shown to be a predisposing factor in some anxiety-related disorders such as panic attacks. [...]... Read more »
Lance M. McCracken, & Edmund Keogh. (2009) Acceptance, mindfulness, and values-based action may counteract fear and avoidance of emotions in chronic pain: an analysis of anxiety sensitivity. The Journal of Pain, 10(4), 408-415.
- March 31, 2009
- 08:48 AM
- 1,092 views
Eyes aversion reconsidered: Kids with autism may prefer Lip-Sync.
by Nestor Lopez-Duran in Translating Autism
Last week I discussed a study showing that kids with low functioning autism identify noses better when these are presented upside down than when presented upright. In the context of that study, the authors suggested that these kids have an aversion to examining eyes directly and tend to focus on parts of the face away from the eyes.This week a group of researchers from Yale University published a
Visit www.translatingautism.com for the full post.... Read more »
Klin, A., Lin, D., Gorrindo, P., Ramsay, G., & Jones, W. (2009) Two-year-olds with autism orient to non-social contingencies rather than biological motion. Nature. DOI: 10.1038/nature07868
- March 31, 2009
- 01:03 AM
- 570 views
Topiramate Does Not Treat Alcohol Dependnece: Part 2
by Neuropsych15 in The MacGuffin
Remember that, in my first post (1), I pointed out that the primary outcome measure for the study was useless? In this second paper (2), the authors admit how unimportant their primary measure was, "...its extensive secondary physical and psychosocial consequences (alcohol dependence) are what make the burden of the disease so devastating. This realization is enshrined in practice in that no commonly used diagnostic scheme for alcoholism or alcohol dependence (i.e., DSM & ICD) includes a qua........ Read more »
Bankole A. Johnson, DSc, MD, PhD, MPhil, FRCPsych; Norman Rosenthal, MD; Julie A. Capece, BA; Frank Wiegand, MD; Lian Mao, PhD; Karen Beyers, MS; Amy McKay, PharmD; Nassima Ait-Daoud, MD; Giovanni Addolorato, MD; Raymond F. Anton, MD; Domenic A. Ciraulo, . (2008) Improvement of Physical Health and Quality of Life of Alcohol-Dependent Individuals With Topiramate Treatment. Archives of Internal Medicine.
- March 30, 2009
- 03:37 PM
- 1,350 views
Women really are better than men at processing faces
by Christian Jarrett in BPS Research Digest
Often, if a film features two characters who look vaguely similar - for instance both are tall, dark-haired, middle-aged men - I will find myself confusing the two, as I struggle to form a distinct impression of each of their faces. Maybe it's to do with the fact I'm male. New research by Ryan McBain has built on previous, more equivocal studies by showing that women are better than men at spotting a face in a display, and better at distinguishing between faces.In an initial experiment, 35 women........ Read more »
R MCBAIN, D NORTON, & Y CHEN. (2009) Females excel at basic face perception. Acta Psychologica, 130(2), 168-173. DOI: 10.1016/j.actpsy.2008.12.005
- March 30, 2009
- 02:04 PM
- 1,641 views
Attention management for chronic pain
by Adiemusfree in Healthskills: Skills for Healthy Living
Deliberately using imagery, attention diversion and mindfulness to cope with pain is not something new. It’s great though, to find that it has some very positive results when studied in a formal clinical research setting.
Elomaa, Williams and Kalso use a fairly straightforward research design to examine the effects, in a clinical population, of systematic training [...]... Read more »
ELOMAA, M., DECWILLIAMS, A., & KALSO, E. (2009) Attention management as a treatment for chronic pain. European Journal of Pain. DOI: 10.1016/j.ejpain.2008.12.002
- March 30, 2009
- 11:49 AM
- 972 views
Siblings of kids with autism: 7 years later.
by Nestor Lopez-Duran in Translating Autism
A number of studies have shown that some parents of children with autism show mild autistic tendencies. This has been called the 'broader autism phenotype'. However, less is known as to whether such phenomenon also affects typically developing brothers and sisters of children with autism. That is, are non-affected siblings of kids with autism free developmental problems or do they show a broader
Visit www.translatingautism.com for the full post.... Read more »
Gamliel, I., Yirmiya, N., Jaffe, D., Manor, O., & Sigman, M. (2009) Developmental Trajectories in Siblings of Children with Autism: Cognition and Language from 4 Months to 7 Years. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders. DOI: 10.1007/s10803-009-0727-2
- March 29, 2009
- 04:52 PM
- 867 views
How well would you do as an expert?
by Henkjan Honing in Music Matters
In the Netherlands (and I’m sure there are versions of it in the UK and the US as well) there is a weekly radio show containing a returning item in which music experts are asked to compare and judge two or three CD recordings of the same piece, without knowing who the musicians are. They have to guess the performers and describe why they do (or don’t) like that particular performance.How well would you do in such a test? The common hypothesis is that experts do this much better, e.g. under t........ Read more »
Honing, H., & Ladinig, O. (2009) Exposure influences expressive timing judgments in music. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 35(1), 281-288. DOI: 10.1037/a0012732
- March 29, 2009
- 04:14 PM
- 1,163 views
BOLD-faced lie detection
by Christian Jarrett in BPS Research Digest
You wouldn't know it from the claims of companies like No Lie MRI, but we're a long way off being able to use brain scans to detect reliably whether a person is lying or not. Nonetheless, cognitive psychologists are busy beavering away in the background, testing the ways that brain activity varies when people lie compared with when they tell the truth. One such study has just been published, claiming to be the first to investigate deception in the context of face recognition.Sujeeta Bhatt and co........ Read more »
Bhatt, S., Mbwana, J., Adeyemo, A., Sawyer, A., Hailu, A., & VanMeter, J. (2009) Lying about facial recognition: An fMRI study. Brain and Cognition, 69(2), 382-390. DOI: 10.1016/j.bandc.2008.08.033
- March 29, 2009
- 02:08 PM
- 919 views
Musing about activity levels
by Adiemusfree in Healthskills: Skills for Healthy Living
Last week I spent a little time looking at activity regulation, and especially looking at over-activity or persistence, rather than the usual under-activity or avoidance pattern. I was reading an in press paper by Hans Heneweer, Luc Vanhees and Susan Picavet, looking at a proposed ‘U-shaped’ relationship between activity and the development of low [...]... Read more »
Heneweer, H., Vanhees, L., & Picavet, H. (2009) Physical activity and low back pain: A U-shaped relation?. Pain. DOI: 10.1016/j.pain.2008.12.033
- March 27, 2009
- 03:28 PM
- 1,031 views
So Gay, So Very Gay
by Neural Outlaw in Neural Interface
It's unbelievable what's uncovered sometimes. A recent survey of British psychologists and psychiatrists has uncovered that a sizeable amount have attempted to "convert" homosexual patients or clients to heterosexual orientations!
It's a well-known axiom that (biological) homosexuality is an orientation that cannot be changed, what to speak of the scientific consensus on the matter, and what do you think might happen if any such changes are encouraged? Psychological h........ Read more »
Bartlett, A., Smith, G., & King, M. (2009) The response of mental health professionals to clients seeking help to change or redirect same-sex sexual orientation. BMC Psychiatry, 9(1), 11. DOI: 10.1186/1471-244X-9-11
- March 27, 2009
- 12:06 PM
- 1,488 views
Does it matter that cortical thickness correlates with intelligence?
by Jake Young in Pure Pedantry
Numerous studies have attempted to correlate general intelligence with different anatomical measures. (You might even argue that the phrenologists were working in this vein.) Likewise many studies have attempted to relate intelligence to the function of different brain regions -- using techniques like fMRI or PET scanning. However, relatively few studies have attempted to correlate general intelligence with anatomical features of particular brains regions.
This is important because we know........ Read more »
Karama, S., Ad-Dab'bagh, Y., Haier, R., Deary, I., Lyttelton, O., Lepage, C., & Evans, A. (2009) Positive association between cognitive ability and cortical thickness in a representative US sample of healthy 6 to 18 year-olds. Intelligence, 37(2), 145-155. DOI: 10.1016/j.intell.2008.09.006
- March 27, 2009
- 09:33 AM
- 859 views
Hyperbaric treatment for children with autism: First controlled clinical trials.
by Nestor Lopez-Duran in Translating Autism
This week Biomed central published a double-blind placebo study of the effectiveness of hyperbaric treatment for autism. The study was published in Biomed, which is an open access journal, so readers are invited to read the entire study here. In sum, the authors randomly assigned 62 children (52 boys, 10 girls) between the ages of 2 to 7 to either a hyperbaric treatment condition or a control... Read more »
Rossignol, D., Rossignol, L., Smith, S., Schneider, C., Logerquist, S., Usman, A., Neubrander, J., Madren, E., Hintz, G., Grushkin, B.... (2009) Hyperbaric treatment for children with autism: a multicenter, randomized, double-blind, controlled trial. BMC Pediatrics, 9(1), 21. DOI: 10.1186/1471-2431-9-21
- March 27, 2009
- 08:45 AM
- 1,472 views
Baby blues: Fathers' postpartum depression affects language development.
by Nestor Lopez-Duran in Child-Psych
How does parental depression effect a child's language development?In the latest issue of the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, Dr. James Paulson and colleagues published a large epidemiological study of parental depression 9 and 24 months after the baby's birth. They were interested in examining the effect of parental depression on parent-child reading activities and the baby's... Read more »
Paulson, J., Keefe, H., & Leiferman, J. (2009) Early parental depression and child language development. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 50(3), 254-262. DOI: 10.1111/j.1469-7610.2008.01973.x
- March 27, 2009
- 02:59 AM
- 688 views
Research highlights from Dr. Obvious: Depressed kids have experienced more depressing events
by Noah Gray in Nothing's Shocking
Interview with Dr. Obvious to discuss the ground-breaking finding that kids who experience more depressing events are more depressed.... Read more »
Mayer, L., Lopez-Duran, N., Kovacs, M., George, C., Baji, I., Kapornai, K., Kiss, E., & Vetró, �. (2009) Stressful life events in a clinical sample of depressed children in Hungary. Journal of Affective Disorders, 115(1-2), 207-214. DOI: 10.1016/j.jad.2008.08.018
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