Psychology news

• Opposites don't attract when learning how to use a prosthesis

  08-10-2015 23:35
  Upper limb amputees, who typically struggle to learn how to use a new prosthesis, would be more successful if fellow amputees taught them, new research suggests. Most usually learn by watching a non-amputee demonstrate the device during physical therapy and rehabilitation sessions. A study that measured arm movements and analyzed brain patterns found that people do better when they learn from someone who looks like them.
  
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• Protecting newborn brains using hypothermia

  08-10-2015 20:27
  A unique study of newborns treated with hypothermia for hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy (HIE) – a condition that occurs when the brain is deprived of an adequate oxygen supply – confirms its neuroprotective effects on the brain.
  
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• Scientists build a digital piece of a rat's brain

  08-10-2015 20:22
  If you want to learn how something works, one strategy is to take it apart and put it back together again. For 10 years, a global initiative called the Blue Brain Project has been attempting to do this digitally with a section of juvenile rat brain. The project presents a first draft of this reconstruction, which contains over 31,000 neurons, 55 layers of cells, and 207 different neuron subtypes.
  
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• Helmeted bicycle riders have significantly reduced severity of injury after an accident

  08-10-2015 20:16
  Helmeted bicycle riders have a 58 percent reduced odds of severe traumatic brain injury after an accident compared to their non-helmeted counterparts, according to researchers.
  
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• New reaction to GOP proposal for school bathroom restrictions

  08-10-2015 19:17
  Legislation would require school boards to designate bathrooms and locker rooms as exclusive to one gender.
  
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• Researchers learn how to grow old brain cells

  08-10-2015 19:12
  A new technique allows scientists to study diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's using cells from human patients. Historically, animal models -- from fruit flies to mice -- have been the go-to technique to study the biological consequences of aging, especially in tissues that can't be easily sampled from living humans, like the brain. Over the past few years, researchers have increasingly turned to stem cells to study various diseases in humans.
  
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• Difficulty processing speech may be an effect of dyslexia, not a cause

  08-10-2015 19:10
  The cognitive skills used to learn how to ride a bike may be the key to a more accurate understanding of developmental dyslexia. And, they may lead to improved interventions. Scientists investigated how procedural learning how individuals with dyslexia learn speech sound categories. They found that learning complex auditory categories through procedural learning is impaired in dyslexia.
  
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• Depression: not a normal part of aging

  08-10-2015 18:00
  
  In line with Mental Health Awareness Week, we look at the risk factors for depression among older adults, as well as the signs of the condition and how it can be treated.
  
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• Walter Friedrich obituary

  08-10-2015 17:50
  
  My friend Walter Friedrich, who has died aged 85, was an academic psychologist and political thinker who played an influential role in events leading up to the first democratic elections in East Germany in 1990.In 1994, in a long conversation with me, Egon Krenz, the former East German communist leader, revealed that it had been Walter who had convinced him that the developing dramatic situation in Leipzig, in October 1989 – when thousands of citizens demonstrated to demand greater democra
  
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• Preventing memory loss before symptoms appear

  08-10-2015 17:05
  A clinical trial is looking at removing a key protein from the brain to prevent memory loss at least a decade before symptoms are noticed in healthy older adults. The trial is focused on an investigational treatment to reduce the impact of the protein beta amyloid.
  
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• New study suggests hallucinations, alone, do not predict onset of schizophrenia

  08-10-2015 17:00
  
  An analysis of psychological symptoms aims to refine diagnostic criteria for teens at high risk of developing the brain disorder that affects millions of people worldwideDespite decades of study...
  
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• PTSD common among female Vietnam-era veterans

  08-10-2015 15:16
  
  Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) may be more common than previously thought among female veterans of the Vietnam War era, suggests a new study.
  
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• Anti-bullying laws appear to be working

  08-10-2015 15:15
  
  The laws have helped everyone, even segments of the population that are typically seen as more at risk: the obese or overweight, people with disabilities and people who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender.
  
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• Third of Footballers Have Mental Health Problems, Study Finds

  08-10-2015 14:52 via feeds.socialpsychology.org
  
  Source: Yahoo News - HealthDepression and anxiety issues affect over a third of current professional footballers, according to a study published by world players' union FIFPro on Tuesday. The research, led by FIFPro's chief medical officer Dr Vincent Gouttebarge, found that 38 percent of the 607 current players sampled and 35 percent of 219 former players reported symptoms of depression and anxiety in the four weeks prior to being questioned. The study also...
  
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• Study Probes Why Perceptions of Attractiveness Vary

  08-10-2015 14:52 via feeds.socialpsychology.org
  
  Source: Yahoo News - ScienceIf you ask these questions to a group of people, they may have different answers, and a new study hints at why: Your perception of other people's attractiveness is mainly the result of your own experiences. In the study of twins, researchers found that a person's environment plays a bigger role than genes in shaping whom they find attractive. The idea that beauty is in the eye of the beholder has been around for a long time, said Laura Germine,...
  
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• Our Brain's Response to Others' Good News Depends on Empathy

  08-10-2015 14:52 via feeds.socialpsychology.org
  Source: ScienceDailyThe way our brain responds to others' good fortune is linked to how empathetic people report themselves to be, according to new research. They study shows that a part of the brain called the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) seems particularly attuned to other people's good news, but how it responds varies substantially depending on our levels of empathy.
  
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• Killing of Trans Woman Marks 20th This Year in U.S.

  08-10-2015 14:52 via feeds.socialpsychology.org
  
  Source: ABC News - Good Morning AmericaKeisha Jenkins, a 22-year-old transgender woman from Philadelphia, was recently beaten and shot to death by a group of men, according to police.
  
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• ISIS "Forced Pregnant Yazidi Women to Have Abortions"

  08-10-2015 14:52 via feeds.socialpsychology.org
  
  Source: CNN - Top StoriesISIS militants forced pregnant women they had sold into slavery to have abortions, according to three young Yazidis who escaped from the Islamic militants' brutal clutches.
  
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• Goth Teens More Likely to Self-Harm and Be Depressed

  08-10-2015 14:52 via feeds.socialpsychology.org
  
  Source: Yahoo News - HealthTeens identifying with the “goth” culture may be more vulnerable to depression and self-harm, according to a UK study. More than a third of goth teens reported hurting themselves on purpose and nearly a fifth reported being depressed - rates that were around three times higher than among other teens, which suggests that gravitating to the goth lifestyle could be a sign of a teen at risk, researchers said. “The subcultures that young people...
  
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• French TV Channel's "Sexist" Ad Backfires

  08-10-2015 14:52 via feeds.socialpsychology.org
  
  Source: BBC News - EuropeFrench TV station pulls an advert boasting about the number of women among its presenters after it is widely criticised as sexist.
  
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• FDA Targets Youth with Hip-Hop Anti-Smoking Campaign

  08-10-2015 14:52 via feeds.socialpsychology.org
  
  Source: CBS News - HealthwatchThe Food and Drug Administration will try to adapt the sounds, style and attitudes of hip-hop into a multi-million dollar anti-smoking campaign to discourage young African Americans, Hispanics and other groups from using tobacco. The federal agency said Tuesday it will spend $128 million on advertising, events and local outreach as part of the "Fresh Empire" campaign, which aims to curb the use of cigarettes and other tobacco products among...
  
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• County May Ask God to Spare It From Same-Sex Marriage "Wrath"

  08-10-2015 14:52 via feeds.socialpsychology.org
  
  Source: CNN - Top StoriesThey say it's better to ask for forgiveness than permission. Tonight, a Tennessee county wants to do just that.
  
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• Breakthrough for electrode implants in the brain

  08-10-2015 14:40
  For nearly nine years, researchers at Lund University have been working on developing implantable electrodes that can capture signals from single neurons in the brain over a long period of time - without causing brain tissue damage. They are now one big step closer to reaching this goal, and the results are published in the scientific journal Frontiers in Neuroscience.
  
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• Women and men react differently to infidelity

  08-10-2015 13:00
  
  Men are more jealous of sexual infidelity than emotional infidelity. The opposite is true for women.
  
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• Surprise: Narcissists are not always risk-takers

  08-10-2015 13:00
  
  Maybe narcissists aren't always such big risk-takers after all, a new study suggests.
  
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• Researchers need to pay attention to differences in self-control

  08-10-2015 12:00
  
  Whether it's resisting buying a candy bar in the checkout lane or purchasing an unneeded pair of shoes on sale at the mall, self-control varies from person to person.
  
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• Attention's place in the human cognitive architecture

  08-10-2015 10:00
  
  Neuroscientists can't build a brain, so they have settled with reverse engineering--learning a lot about each part in hopes that they can understand how all of the pieces fit together.
  
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• Where is the world's most stressful city?

  08-10-2015 08:50
  
  Research has shown that city-living has been linked to depression and anxiety – but what is it, exactly, that makes urban life so stressful? And what can be done to make the world’s cities more habitable?“Sitting constantly in dilapidated cars wrecks their spines, and the ceaseless shouting that goes on in the streets of Cairo destroys their nervous systems,” Khaled Al Khamissi wrote in his 2007 book Taxi, a collection of conversations with 58 of Cairo’s 80,000 taxi
  
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