Psychology
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Humans
Playing for real in a virtual world
Preteen boys and girls interacting in a virtual world display the same contrasting play styles that have been observed in real-world settings.
By Bruce Bower -
Health & Medicine
Taking age stereotypes to heart
A long-term investigation indicates that young and middle-aged adults who hold negative attitudes about the elderly are more likely to have heart ailments and strokes later in life.
By Bruce Bower -
Psychology
Don’t worry, get attention training
New studies suggest that a short course of attention training offers as much relief to sufferers of two common anxiety disorders as psychotherapy or medication.
By Bruce Bower -
Psychology
Fatal fallout of financial failure
Using population data, researchers have linked a widespread Asian economic crisis in 1997 to an abrupt increase in suicide rates the following year in hard-hit places.
By Bruce Bower -
Humans
The Dating Go Round
Speed dating offers scientists a peek at how romance actually blossoms.
By Bruce Bower -
Health & Medicine
Parenting shapes genetic risk for drug use
A three-year study of black teens in rural Georgia finds that involved, supportive parenting powerfully buffers the tendency of some genetically predisposed youngsters to use drugs.
By Bruce Bower -
Humans
When giving gifts, the price is wrong
Gift givers expect that expensive presents will be appreciated by gift receivers more than inexpensive presents, but three new investigations suggest that that’s not the case.
By Bruce Bower -
Psychology
Recovering memories that never left
New research suggests that some people who recover memories of childhood sexual abuse are prone to false recall, while others are likely to have forgotten earlier recollections of actual abuse.
By Bruce Bower -
Health & Medicine
Brain reorganizes to make room for math
New research suggests that, as children learn arithmetic, the brain reorganizes dramatically as it shifts from handling only estimates of quantities to attaching precise quantities to symbolic numerals.
By Bruce Bower -
Health & Medicine
This is the teenager’s brain on peer pressure
Research shared during the fourth day of the Society for Neuroscience annual meeting remained diverse: What happens in the brain when teenagers feel peer pressure, a study in mice suggesting a new way to treat depression, the best way to relearn walking after a stroke, and the long lasting effects of disrupted sleep.
By Science News -
Psychology
Your body is mine
Scientists have developed a technique for inducing an illusion of having swapped one’s own body with someone else’s body, providing a new means for investigating self-identity and body-image disorders.
By Bruce Bower -
Health & Medicine
Itch
When it comes to sensory information detected by the body, pain is king, and itch is the court jester. But that insistent, tingly feeling—satisfied only by a scratch—is anything but funny to the millions of people who suffer from it chronically.