ing fMRI scans of an actor's brain as she reads poetry: But what really excites Scott is the parts of the brain Shaw was using for the poetry. "In addition to all the parts of the brain associated with motor skills, like moving the tongue or lips, she used a part of the brain associated with analysing or doing a complex transformation of a visual image. If I told you to imagine the figure 8, turn it through 90 degrees,…
yBlog covers a study that explored the phenomenon of 'reflected glory' where sports fans will psychologically associate themselves with their team more closely if they are successful, but will distance themselves if the team loses. The post discusses a classic 1976 study that looked at the 'basking in reflected glory' effect: In the first of three experiments they compared what people wore when their college football team won with when they lost. On each occasion they went out and counted…
Overconfidence. Despite the various mental weaknesses associated with money, most people are dramatically overconfident in their decision making. Overconfidence is the engine that allows all of these other money mistakes to operate unchecked. 2. Being Unprepared. A common and fatalistic belief is that either you've got it or you don't. As a result, people ignore the benefits of thorough preparation in negotiation. Too many people "wing it" in important negotiations and make mistakes that could easily have been avoided.…
itish prosecutors withdrew charges last week against Brian Thomas, a 59-year-old retired steelworker from Wales who strangled his wife to death as she slept in their camper van. Thomas claimed he was also asleep during the attack and imagined he was fighting off an intruder. Sleep experts believed him. How did they know he was telling the truth? They watched him sleep, for starters. To determine whether someone suffers from a sleep-arousal disorder, or parasomnia, researchers often videotape the person…
les have more pronounced personalities than females across a range of species -- from humans to house sparrows -- according to new research. Consistent personality traits, such as aggression and daring, are also more important to females when looking for a mate than they are to males. Research from the University of Exeter draws together a range of studies to reveal the role that sexual selection plays in this disparity between males and females. via sciencedaily.com Join over 320,000 readers. Get…
's one of evolution's most eccentric creations: a head shaped like a hammer. Now, a study suggests that the hammerhead shark may have evolved its oddly shaped snout to boost the animal's vision and hunting prowess. For over a century, scientists have speculated why hammerheads evolved such an odd shape and whether having eyes so far apart would enhance their vision. In 1942 a leading authority on sharks, Gordon Walls, suggested the position of the shark's eyes prevented it from…
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think that price discrimination really deserves a lot more attention than it gets in the economics curriculum. A lot of "economic naturalist" sorts of questions are correctly answered by appealing to the concept of price discrimination. I think it explains airline pricing, credit card pricing, cable TV pricing, cell phone pricing, movie popcorn pricing, etc. Suppose that a new video game console comes out. BZ likes video games, but he is only willing to pay about $200 for the…
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