Psychology

Only a few years ago, I could shock people by divulging that I don't own a TV. Since Hulu and others let me get my show fix online, I now seem to be part of a growing minority who only have one kind of box at home.

But I still shock people. All I have to do is admit I'm not on Facebook. According to most people I talk to, at least, this is truly strange behavior.

So it's not surprising that so many people rely on social media, for both work and play, every day--a statistic … Read more

We all have coming-of-age bullying stories.

Mine started in junior high, when I was called a "sailor's dream" by the same boys who ogled me after that glorious summer before 9th grade, when you-know-what finally sprung forth. Then a new kind of torment began, and when I rejected the hot football quarterback, the lesbian rumors flew.

That was the mid-'90s, when hardly anyone even had e-mail. So what's it like in the age of Facebook, sexting, and the ability to taunt and be taunted 24-7? And moreover, what's it like for the kids who … Read more

It seems only natural for humans to want to understand how our own brains work. But of all the humans alive today, is anyone more likely to get excited about the science of human impulse than advertisers?

Professors at Duke University and Emory University have just published a perspective paper in the journal Nature Reviews Neuroscience on the emerging field of neuromarketing, where researchers use the tools of modern brain science to study the human brain's decision-making processes.

Neuromarketing, a term coined in 2002, casts a wide net, using various sensor and imaging technologies--i.e. functional MRI--to measure … Read more

What do you do when you're miserable? Do you reach for a little absinthe and attempt to drown your sorrows in a sea of green? Do you go shopping and blow money you don't have on things you don't want? Or do you disappear into the web of tears known as the Web?

I ask this difficult question not merely because so many in the world are subsumed currently by the darkness of winter. You see, the hopeful harbingers at Sky News thrust forward a research study by psychologists at the University of Leeds suggesting that those … Read more

Post-traumatic stress, which is estimated to afflict one in five veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars alone, is typically diagnosed through behavioral screenings and is often considered a "soft" disorder with no known biomarkers.

"It's like depression in that it can be hidden by the sufferer, it can be latent, and it can be re-activated," says Apostolos Georgopoulos, a professor of neuroscience at the University of Minnesota. "That's a major issue for the Army, which has to decide whether to re-deploy troops who have had it."

Georgopoulos has previously discovered biomarkers … Read more

Pornography has long been considered to be one of the main motivators of major technological inventions, from the camera to the worldwide Web. Its effects on human health and sexuality have also been, and likely will always be, hotly debated. (The pun is irresistible.)

But new research out of the University of Montreal suggests that pornography is so widely digested, and with such a seemingly low correlation to "pathological" behavior, that it is grossly over-demonized. The research is funded by the Interdisciplinary Research Center on Family Violence and Violence Against Women.

Simon Louis Lajeunesse, a postdoctoral student and … Read more

Cardiac patients undergoing procedures at the National Heart Centre Singapore (NHCS) starting Thursday may find themselves either immersed in a Disney World setting or the African Savannah, with accompanying audio playing in the background. It's part of a testbed project by the center involving Philips' Ambient Experience to soothe patients through the intimidating clinical process of preparation, examination, treatment, and post-procedure.

The Ambient Experience takes patients on a multimedia ride, letting them personalize the lighting, projected images, and sounds in the examination or lab room. The 10 themes can be selected via a menu on a wireless touch-screen tablet, with more themes on the way. Once picked, the patient's choice is projected on the walls and ceilings and through TV screens, wrapping the user in a multi-sensory setting of his or her own choosing.

So far, the Ambient Experience appears to have had a positive impact on the three patients who earlier sampled it. According to 75-year-old Neo Bee, who was at the cardiac catheterization laboratory to have angioplasty to open her blocked arteries, "I saw birds and kangaroos on the ceiling and there was soothing music, too. I felt calm and relaxed."… Read more

To all the men (and women) I've ever heard complain about the female libido, it's time to take the batteries out of your high-tech remote-control sex toys.

Flibanserin, a drug originally designed to fight depression, turns out to be an ineffective antidepressant but a highly effective libido booster in women who report low sex drives, according to results pooled from three separate clinical trials. (It's long been thought that antidepressants suppress sex drives, so it makes its own strange sense that a poor antidepressant might not have the same suppressing effect.)

"It's essentially a Viagra-like … Read more

A new study out of Iowa State University finds that people who play video games for 40-plus hours a week have a harder time focusing on certain tasks than those who play just a few hours a week. Published in the latest issue of the journal Psychophysiology, the study also supports research published earlier this year that found a positive correlation between video game addiction and Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD).

Researchers collected data from 51 Iowa State undergrads ages 18 to 33, about half of whom reported playing less than a couple hours of video games a week, and about … Read more