Neuroscience
What Happens When a Neurosurgeon Removes Your Hippocampus
June 6, 2014
Until the past few decades, neuroscientists had one way to plumb the human brain: wait for disaster to strike people and, if the victims pulled through, see how their minds worked differently afterward. These poor men and women endured strokes, seizures, saber gashes, botched surgeries, and accidents so horrific that their survivals seemed little short of miracles. To say these people “survived,” though, doesn’t quite capture the truth. Their bodies survived, but their minds didn’t quite;...
June 6, 2014
Until the past few decades, neuroscientists had one way to plumb the human brain: wait for disaster to strike people and, if the victims pulled through, see how their minds worked differently afterward. These poor men and women endured strokes, seizures, saber gashes, botched surgeries, and accidents so horrific that their survivals seemed little short of miracles. To say these people “survived,” though, doesn’t quite capture the truth. Their bodies survived, but their minds didn’t quite;...
Left Brain, Right Brain: Two Sides, Always Working Together
June 5, 2014
And although it is true that the left hemisphere controls speech and plays a major role in grammar and comprehension, the right hemisphere plays a key role not only in our comprehending implied meaning but also in our understanding and producing verbal metaphors and humor, and it is largely responsible for helping us to decipher the meaning of changes in speaking tone, such as the rising tone at the end of a spoken question. And both hemispheres play critical roles in extracting meaning in general....
June 5, 2014
And although it is true that the left hemisphere controls speech and plays a major role in grammar and comprehension, the right hemisphere plays a key role not only in our comprehending implied meaning but also in our understanding and producing verbal metaphors and humor, and it is largely responsible for helping us to decipher the meaning of changes in speaking tone, such as the rising tone at the end of a spoken question. And both hemispheres play critical roles in extracting meaning in general....
5 Communication Skills that Open People’s Minds
June 4, 2014
Five Tricks For Opening Minds 1. Establish your common humanity. 2. Start with stories, not reasons. 3. Allow your discussion partner to feel safe changing his or her mind. 4. Validate their experience, question their interpretation. 5. Keep focused on your goal. What’s Next? The next time you’re in a discussion with someone about a controversial issue such as religion, politics, household chores, or dietary doctrine, try to use these tricks: Establish a dialogue...
June 4, 2014
Five Tricks For Opening Minds 1. Establish your common humanity. 2. Start with stories, not reasons. 3. Allow your discussion partner to feel safe changing his or her mind. 4. Validate their experience, question their interpretation. 5. Keep focused on your goal. What’s Next? The next time you’re in a discussion with someone about a controversial issue such as religion, politics, household chores, or dietary doctrine, try to use these tricks: Establish a dialogue...
DARPA-Funded Computerized Psychologists Can Diagnose Anxiety, Depression, and PTSD
May 28, 2014
A veteran is having a virtual therapy session. His counselor is named Ellie, and she is, among other things, a very good listener. She's responsive to the soldier's comments. She reads the subtleties of his facial expressions. She nods appreciatively at his insights. She grimaces, slightly, when he tells her about a trauma he experienced. Ellie is an avatar, a virtual therapist developed at USC with funding from DARPA, the Defense Department's advanced research center. And "people love interacting...
May 28, 2014
A veteran is having a virtual therapy session. His counselor is named Ellie, and she is, among other things, a very good listener. She's responsive to the soldier's comments. She reads the subtleties of his facial expressions. She nods appreciatively at his insights. She grimaces, slightly, when he tells her about a trauma he experienced. Ellie is an avatar, a virtual therapist developed at USC with funding from DARPA, the Defense Department's advanced research center. And "people love interacting...
Here’s Why Believing People Can Change Is So Important in Life
May 28, 2014
Adolescents who believe people can change cope better with the challenges of attending high school, a new study finds. In contrast, those who believed that people’s personalities are fixed and unchangeable fared worse, suffering higher levels of stress and poorer physical health. The study’s authors were inspired by the idea that the high school years are a defining period in life: “Iconic films such as The Breakfast Club or Back to the Future depict teens as indelibly marked as “losers,”...
May 28, 2014
Adolescents who believe people can change cope better with the challenges of attending high school, a new study finds. In contrast, those who believed that people’s personalities are fixed and unchangeable fared worse, suffering higher levels of stress and poorer physical health. The study’s authors were inspired by the idea that the high school years are a defining period in life: “Iconic films such as The Breakfast Club or Back to the Future depict teens as indelibly marked as “losers,”...
What Bees Tell Us About Making Better Decisions
May 27, 2014
Cornell University biologist Thomas Seely, in a Cornell Chronicle Online story by Susan S. Lang, explains how bees build coalitions until a quorum develops. Seely says bees rely on disagreement and contest, whereas humans often rely on consensus and compromise. Researchers know the bees make excellent decisions because they set up situations that offered choices to the bees, some superior for bees and others not so great. The bees almost always chose the superior sites. * * * To help feel...
May 27, 2014
Cornell University biologist Thomas Seely, in a Cornell Chronicle Online story by Susan S. Lang, explains how bees build coalitions until a quorum develops. Seely says bees rely on disagreement and contest, whereas humans often rely on consensus and compromise. Researchers know the bees make excellent decisions because they set up situations that offered choices to the bees, some superior for bees and others not so great. The bees almost always chose the superior sites. * * * To help feel...
Your Stress is My Stress: Observing Stress Can Trigger Physical Stress Response
May 26, 2014
Merely observing stressful situations can trigger a physical stress response, research shows. Stress is a major health threat in today's society. It causes a range of psychological problems like burnout, depression and anxiety. Even those who lead relatively relaxed lives constantly come into contact with stressed individuals. Whether at work or on television: someone is always experiencing stress, and this stress can affect the general environment in a physiologically quantifiable way through increased...
May 26, 2014
Merely observing stressful situations can trigger a physical stress response, research shows. Stress is a major health threat in today's society. It causes a range of psychological problems like burnout, depression and anxiety. Even those who lead relatively relaxed lives constantly come into contact with stressed individuals. Whether at work or on television: someone is always experiencing stress, and this stress can affect the general environment in a physiologically quantifiable way through increased...
How About Paying Parents for Their Kids’ Good Grade?
May 26, 2014
In Think Like a Freak, we touch briefly on paying schoolkids for good grades — which, much of the time, isn’t successful. This inspired a note from a reader named Gary Crowley, who describes himself as “an economics major in college many years ago”: Hey Guys, Loved Think Like a Freak. One thought: Why don’t we trying paying parents for kids getting good grades??? If the parents are motivated to make money, from someone else’s hard work, then they’ll make the kids work harder...
May 26, 2014
In Think Like a Freak, we touch briefly on paying schoolkids for good grades — which, much of the time, isn’t successful. This inspired a note from a reader named Gary Crowley, who describes himself as “an economics major in college many years ago”: Hey Guys, Loved Think Like a Freak. One thought: Why don’t we trying paying parents for kids getting good grades??? If the parents are motivated to make money, from someone else’s hard work, then they’ll make the kids work harder...
Mediation Quotes
May 20, 2014
In the vast majority of cases, clients have a greater likelihood of making a devastating settlement decision in a mediation session than watching their attorney conduct a devastating cross-examination at trial. - Randall Kiser Some of the sharpest men in argument are notoriously unsound in judgment. I should not trust the counsel of a smart debater, any more than that of a good chess-player. - Oliver Wendell Holmes The appropriateness of lawyers' probability judgments has important implications...
May 20, 2014
In the vast majority of cases, clients have a greater likelihood of making a devastating settlement decision in a mediation session than watching their attorney conduct a devastating cross-examination at trial. - Randall Kiser Some of the sharpest men in argument are notoriously unsound in judgment. I should not trust the counsel of a smart debater, any more than that of a good chess-player. - Oliver Wendell Holmes The appropriateness of lawyers' probability judgments has important implications...
How to Tell When Someone is Lying
May 13, 2014
People lie all the time. According to the psychologist Robert Feldman, who has spent more than four decades studying the phenomenon, we lie, on average, three times during a routine ten-minute conversation with a stranger or casual acquaintance. Hardly anyone refrains from lying altogether, and some people report lying up to twelve times within that time span. I might open a conversation, for instance, by saying how nice it is to meet someone—when I’m really not at all happy about it. I might...
May 13, 2014
People lie all the time. According to the psychologist Robert Feldman, who has spent more than four decades studying the phenomenon, we lie, on average, three times during a routine ten-minute conversation with a stranger or casual acquaintance. Hardly anyone refrains from lying altogether, and some people report lying up to twelve times within that time span. I might open a conversation, for instance, by saying how nice it is to meet someone—when I’m really not at all happy about it. I might...
