Psychology

  1. Humans

    DVDs don’t turn toddlers into vocabulary Einsteins

    Young children don’t learn words from a popular educational program, but some of their parents think they do.

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  2. Health & Medicine

    Alzheimer’s trade-off for mentally active seniors

    Staying mentally active may delay the onset of Alzheimer’s disease but may also prompt rapid cognitive decline once symptoms appear.

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  3. Psychology

    Sadness response strengthens with age

    Older people reacted more strongly to sad scenes than twentysomethings did in a recent study of emotional receptivity.

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  4. Psychology

    DNA variant may make heavy boozing a team sport

    People who inherit a particular gene variant may find it more appealing to drink a lot of alcohol when they see others doing so.

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  5. Psychology

    Ancient hominids grabbed early northern exposure

    Newly recovered stone tools indicate that hominids lived in chilly northwestern Europe more than 800,000 years ago.

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  6. Psychology

    Voter madness

    Sports outcomes can influence politicians’ performance at the polls.

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  7. Humans

    Botox injections put a crease in emotional evaluations

    By immobilizing a muscle needed for frowning, Botox injections may interfere with a person’s ability to assess others’ emotions.

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  8. Psychology

    Social judgments take touching turns

    New evidence suggests that the sense of touch influences people’s willingness to drive a hard bargain or endorse a job candidate.

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  9. Humans

    For sight-reading music, practice doesn’t make perfect

    Individual memory differences may set upper limits on pianists’ sight-reading skill, regardless of their experience.

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  10. Psychology

    Travelers have southern bias

    Southern routes to a destination often get picked over same-distance northern routes, possibly because people equate north with “up.”

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  11. Humans

    Secondhand smoke linked to mental distress

    A Scottish survey finds a link between exposure to cigarette smoke and serious emotional problems.

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  12. Humans

    Making scents of a partner’s feelings

    Couples pick up on subtle differences in other half’s emotion-laden odors, new study suggests.

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