The phrase, “the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing,” has its roots in a passage of the Bible (Matthew 6:3). If there is truth to this old saying, the reasons may have as much to do with the way the brain obtains information from the arms as it does from the observations of ancient scribes.
Background
Most individuals are either left- or right-handed. How the skills they have learned from the dominant arm (or hand) are transferred to the non-dominant arm ha
A low-testosterone man newly married to a high-testosterone woman might seem destined to be henpecked but a Penn State study found that such a coupling actually produced a marriage where the wife provided better social support for her mate.
Dr. Catherine Cohan, assistant professor of human development and family studies, says, “It’s not necessarily the case that higher testosterone is all bad. Testosterone is related to assertiveness which can be good or bad depending on whether it is m
Dartmouth research group has found a new and unexpected way our attention can be grabbed – by grabbable objects. Their study, which appears in the March 17 advance online issue of Nature Neuroscience, demonstrates that objects we typically associate with grasping, such as screwdrivers, forks or pens, automatically attract our visual attention, especially if these items are on a person’s right-hand side.
In the brain, there are two primary visual pathways, one for identifying objects (p
A long-term study of patients in Rochester, Minn., with the eating disorder anorexia nervosa found that their survival rates did not differ from the expected survival rates of others of the same age and sex.
The results, published in the March issue of Mayo Clinic Proceedings, add to the knowledge of anorexia nervosa and point to other areas that need greater study from researchers.
“Although our data suggest that overall mortality is not increased among community patients
It is natural to suppose that conducting the same tests, with the same strain of mice and the same protocols on identical equipment but in different labs will ensure similar results. A University of Alberta researcher and his team have found that assumption not to be true–fuelling the nature vs. nurture debate and shedding some light on the importance of environmental factors in experiments.
Dr. Douglas Wahlsten, from the Department of Psychology, is part of a research team that use mice w
Odour is an affective stimulus that elicits both positive as well as negative emotional responses. This has implications for the way consumers evaluate products. Odour as a marketing tool has received an increased amount of attention recently. Retailers are exploring the impact of scents on consumers’ purchase behaviour (think for example about the smell of fresh pastries when you enter a supermarket). Nowadays, technological developments enable the use of scent-patches on packaging and ads, which ma
When men make lame excuses for a poor test performance, women don’t buy it, according to research just published by Edward Hirt, a social psychologist at Indiana University Bloomington.
Hirt has spent the last 10 years conducting research on this aspect of social psychology that involves the term self-handicapping. The associate professor of psychology is the lead author of “I Know You Self-Handicapped Last Exam: Gender Differences in Reactions to Self-Handicapping” in the current issue of
Study is first link ’compensatory prefrontal network’ to better performance on memory tests
A group of Canadian researchers has found the most direct evidence to date that people with early-stage Alzheimer Disease can engage additional areas in the brain to perform successfully on memory tests.
Led by Dr. Cheryl Grady, a senior scientist with The Rotman Research Institute at Baycrest Centre for Geriatric Care, the study is published in the February 1, 2003 issue of
Researchers from Duke University Medical Center and the Medical College of Wisconsin have shown that removing a portion, instead of all, of the spleen, can successfully treat children with a variety of congenital anemias while preserving important splenic immune function.
In the largest study of its kind in the U.S., the researchers performed the surgery, known as a partial splenectomy, on 25 children with congenital forms of anemia caused by abnormal red blood cells. Typically, these
Expert in ‘emotional communication’ says 1-year-olds can pick up ‘emotional signals’ and base decisions on them
What do infants learn as they watch people talk or act in a certain manner? If a television is on in a room, how much do infants pay attention to it?
These are questions Donna Mumme, assistant professor of psychology at Tufts University, answers in her study, “The Infant as Onlooker: Learning from Emotional Reactions Observed in a Television Scenario.” Co-authored
A golden early old age is within sight for many people, says new research funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, which demonstrates that the good life is much less influenced by your past – the job your father had, for instance – than by the present, when two of the most important influences are having choices about working or not working, and having friends in whom you can confide.
“Good quality of life in early old age is a realistic ambition for all”, says the research team,
Nicotine administration in humans is known to sharpen attention and to slightly enhance memory. Now scientists, using functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), have identified those areas of the brain where nicotine exerts its effects on cognitive skills.
Their findings suggest that nicotine improves attention in smokers by enhancing activation in the posterior cortical and subcortical regions of the brain–areas traditionally associated with visual attention, arousal, and motor a
In recent years a new view of health has emerged. The change has been so momentous that it has been called a paradigm shift. But what kind of social transformation are we experiencing? What is actually meant by ‘health promotion’? This is what Peter Korp at the University of Trollhättan/Uddevalla has investigated in his doctoral dissertation in sociology. The study is the first to be carried out on the basis of conditions in Sweden.
The view of how health is dealt with in society ha
Nearly four decades of research conclude that power toothbrushes with rotation oscillation action, such as the Oral-B 3D Excel, are demonstrably more effective in removing plaque and reducing gingivitis than other types of power toothbrushes — including those featuring “sonic” technology — according to an international study announced today at the Forsyth Institute conference on evidence-based dentistry.
Half of adults age 18 or older have some evidence of gingivitis, the earliest
Whether you fancy yourself a jet-setting sophisticate or a down-to-earth outdoorsy type, a fast-track corporate star or an all-around nice guy, new research indicates that you probably tune out information that challenges your self-image by tuning in to television.
The findings, by Sophia Moskalenko of the University of Pennsylvania and Steven Heine of the University of British Columbia, are presented in a paper published in the January issue of the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.
Nearly 20 percent of smokers using an over-the-counter nicotine patch in a new study were able to quit smoking entirely after six weeks, compared to only 7 percent of smokers using a dummy patch. Each group reported only mild side effects from patch use, like rashes or insomnia.
None of the smokers received any direct instruction on how to use the patch or got behavioral counseling to help them quit smoking, which suggests that nicotine patches used in an over-the-counter manner can be safe
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