Are You a “Pre-crastinator”?
The views expressed are those of the author and are not necessarily those of Scientific American. Each of us, at times, can be a procrastinator, putting off something that is hard to do or that we don’t want to do. But three researchers at Pennsylvania State University think we humans may also be precrastinators—hurrying to get something done so we can cross it off our mental to-do list, even if the rush ends up being wasteful. The researchers also claim to have coined the term “precrastination.” Psychology professor David Rosenbaum and his two collaborators reached their conclusion after asking 257 students to complete a bucket challenge. Almost all of the students chose the bucket that was closer to them—meaning, farther from the end of the alley, requiring more physical work to complete the task. Rosenbaum actually designed the experiment to investigate aspects of walking and reaching; he is an expert in human perception and motor control.
Health - Do we all see the same colours?
Are the colours you see the same as the ones I see? Future's resident psychologist has a moment of doubt and wonders if science can help ease his worries. Imagine the two of us, arm in arm, looking at a sunset, where the horizon is fretted with golden fire and the deep blue night encroaches from the opposite side of the sky. "What beautiful colours", I say, and you agree. And then, in the space of the following silence, I am struck by a worry. Now I admit that this worry lies in the realm of philosophy, not neuroscience. How green is my valley? Our colour vision starts with the sensors in the back of the eye that turn light information into electrical signals in the brain – neuroscientists call them photoreceptors. At the other end of the scale, some people have a particularly heightened sensitivity to colour. So yes, as we share this sunset, perhaps I am seeing something you cannot see, or you are seeing something I cannot see. Behind blue eyes
Perfectionism, Procrastination, and Distress | Psychology Today
Excessive concerns about making mistakes, pernicious self-doubt, harsh self-criticism, impossibly high standards or expectations for performance, a strong and chronic tendency to evaluate one’s performance as not measuring up to levels expected by oneself or others - these are features of maladaptive perfectionism that predict psychological distress. In a longitudinal study across the semester of a sample of predominantly female undergraduate students, Kenneth Rice, Clarissa Richardson, and Dustin Clark from the University of Florida examined the relations between measures of perfectionism, procrastination, and psychological distress. They explored a number of different potential models that might explain the relation among these variables, with a particular emphasis on a model where perfectionism leads to more procrastination that increases psychological distress. Interestingly, this isn’t what they found. Perfectionism and Procrastination Results Implications The authors write, References
Why Humans Like to Cry
Mind & Brain :: Mind Matters :: January 29, 2013 :: :: Email :: Print The anguished tear, a British scientist argues in a new book, is what makes us uniquely human By Gareth Cook Michael Trimble Image: Courtesy of Michael Trimble Michael Trimble , a British professor at the Institute of Neurology in London, begins his new book with Gana the gorilla. Cook: How did you first become interested in crying? Cook: What is known about crying in the animal world? Cook: How is crying different in humans? Cook: What do you find most interesting about the neuroscience of crying?
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What does this smell like? Wine snobbery made easy | Oscillator
We can see millions of variations in color but we split up the rainbow into just six main colors when trying to describe what we see–red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple. For the thousands of odors that we can smell we have barely any words at all, usually resorting to simile–smells like fresh cut grass, lemon, wet dog, stinky cheese. Chemists, sensory psychologists, and snobs of all types have been trying to define and categorize smells for decades, settling on seven main categories: musky, putrid, pungent, campohoraceous, ethereal, floral, pepperminty. These categories do a good job for most things, but every kind of smelly thing can have its own connoisseurs and its own categories, none more so than wine. Armed with the aroma wheel and the reference smells you can train your nose to identify all the subtle flavors and aromas of wine:
The Effects Of Emotional Abuse & How To Heal Them - mindbodygreen
Insomnia, appetite changes, constant fear, a sense of doom, and hopelessness: self-destruct mode. This is your body saying "no more." Your patchwork — the above four solutions — aren't working anymore, and your body is going to torture your mind until you surrender to the only permanent solution: love. You should seek professional therapy for anxiety and depression, but I would highly recommend that all emotional abuse survivors approach therapy from the perspective of love rather than constant analysis of your undesirable behaviors. After emotional abuse, there are so many lies obstructing the heart: not enough, inadequate, worthless, bad, broken, replaceable, unlovable, my fault. Related reads:
Vacuum Tube: Kids under 2 Should Not Watch Television
Every parent needs a break from time to time—a few minutes to prepare dinner, do the laundry or quickly check e-mail. That's when the television suddenly becomes the best invention ever—an instant free babysitter that enthralls even the youngest infants and might, fingers crossed, even teach them a thing or two. But a new policy statement published today by the American Academy of Pediatrics suggests that not only do children under age two probably learn nothing from the television, but that watching too much can actually delay language development and cause attentional problems. To be fair, it is impossible to keep kids from the TV entirely. "Screens are everywhere," remarks lead author Ari Brown, a pediatrician based in Austin, Texas. And studies have shown that some educational television programs, such as Dora the Explorer and Blue’s Clues , can improve vocabulary in older kids.
Half of Your Friends Aren’t Actually Your Friend -- Science of Us
Here’s a fun exercise: Take a minute and count up all your friends. Not just the close ones, or the ones you’ve seen recently — I mean every single person on this Earth that you consider a pal. Got a number in your mind? Good. Now cut it in half. Okay, yes, “fun” may have been a bit of a reach there. The study authors gave a survey to 84 college students in the same class, asking each one to rate every other person in the study on a scale of zero (“I do not know this person”) to five (“One of my best friends”), with three as the minimum score needed to qualify for friendship. Overall, the researchers documented 1,353 cases of friendship, meaning instances where one person rated another as a three or higher. Which makes sense — you probably wouldn’t call someone a friend, after all, unless you thought that definition was mutual.
