psychology

The evolutionary triumph of flower power

... McGuire; Jeannette Haviland-Jones, a professor of psychology at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey; and others, states that in spite of some basic survival uses such as edible or medicinal flowers, most flowering plants grown in the flower industry today are not used for any purpose other than emotion...

Mice brains shrink during winter, impairing some learning and memory

...dy Nelson, co-author of the study and professor of psychology and neuroscience at Ohio State University . The c...t Ohio State , and Brenda Reader, an undergraduate psychology major at Ohio State . The findings were published in the May 4 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience....

Chickadees can help humans get their bearings

...," said co-author Dr. Chris Sturdy, a professor of psychology and member of the Centre for Neuroscience at the University of Alberta. The wild-caught chickadees differed from all previously tested animals by ignoring angular features of their environment and following landmarks instead. Although able to learn ...

Study shows humans have ability to track odors, much like bloodhounds

... study coauthor Noam Sobel, associate professor of psychology at UC Berkeley and a member of the campus's Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute. "It seems that we have this ability and that, with practice, you could become really good at it." In future experiments, UC Berkeley biophysics graduate student Jess Por...

Scientists discover the body's marijuana-like compounds are crucial for stress-induced pain relief

...rea Hohmann, a neuroscientist in the department of psychology at the University of Georgia and co-author of the paper. "This is the first time anyone has shown that one of the body's naturally occurring cannabinoids, a compound known as 2-AG, has anything to do with pain regulation under natural conditions." T...

When in danger humans are similar to a deer in the headlights

...retical, empirical and methodological advances in: psychology and psychiatry, cognitive science, cognitive and affective neuroscience, social science, health science and behavioral medicine, and biomedical engineering. It is published on behalf of the Society for Psychophysiological Research. The study is auth...

Environment, not genes, key in family relationships

...essor emeritus in the University of Texas-Austin's psychology department. "But direct evidence of this and of the details of such a process must await appropriate longitudinal studies." "While these findings in themselves have no immediate practical implication," he continued. "But they should help guide futur...

Out of sight, out of mind? Not necessarily

...bove chance," said Tony Ro, associate professor of psychology and principal investigator for the study. "Even though the human primary visual cortex activity was temporarily shut down, it's clear that detailed visual information was still being processed unconsciously." Because only a certain region of the th...

Researchers develop new method for studying 'mental time travel'

...psychology, and Sean Polyn, who earned his Ph.D in psychology from Princeton in 2005 and is a now a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Pennsylvania. Polyn and Norman collaborated with Jonathan Cohen, director of Princeton's Center for the Study of Brain, Mind and Behavior, and Vaidehi Natu, a research...

Brain activity related to processing faces is similar in people with, without autism

...r of psychiatry in UNC's School of Medicine and of psychology in UNC's College of Arts and Sciences; and Dr. Gabriel Dichter, postdoctoral research fellow within UNC's Neurodevelopmental Disorders Research Center. The study involved functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI. Unlike standard MRI scans that...

Recreating 'Flowers for Algernon' with a happy ending

...o Silva, professor of neurobiology, psychiatry and psychology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. "Currently, there are no treatment options for these people. That's why our findings are so exciting from a clinical perspective." In an earlier study, Silva and his colleagues linked NF1's learning ...

Carnegie Mellon scientists show brain uses optimal code for sound

...ed spikes," said Evan Smith, a graduate student in psychology at the CNBC. Until now, scientists and engineers have relied on Fourier transformations--initially discovered 200 years ago--to separate and re-constitute parameters like frequency and intensity as part of traditional sound signal processing. "Ou...

Growth hormone is made in the brain, report scientists

...said Tracey J. Shors, co-author and a professor of psychology at the Center for Collaborative Neuroscience at Rutgers: the State University of New Jersey. "There are remarkable differences. People used to think of females as a male with hormones. That's just not the case." The authors found that growth hormone...

'Uniquely human' component of language found in gregarious birds

...rns," said Timothy Gentner, assistant professor of psychology at UCSD and lead author of the study. "If birds ca...s," said Howard Nusbaum, chairman and professor of psychology at the University of Chicago and senior author of the Nature study. "There are many ways for an exp...

Great (taste) expectations: Study shows brain anticipates taste, shifts gears

...by a team led by UW-Madison assistant professor of psychology and psychiatry Jack B. Nitschke, tested the ability of the human brain to mitigate foul taste through a ruse of anticipation. The work, conducted at the UW-Madison Waisman Center using state-of-the-art brain imaging techniques and distasteful concoct...

Manipulating single cell receptor alters animal behavior

...he study are Derek Daniels, assistant professor of psychology at the University at Buffalo, and Daniel K. Yee, research associate professor, Department of Animal Biology, University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine. Daniels says, "The research highlights the importance of intracellular events in t...

New brain hormone puts brakes on reproduction

...ical Sciences at Barnard College, and professor of psychology at Columbia University, and has continued this research in his own lab as an assistant professor. Using fluorescent antibodies to GnIH, they were able to locate where in the brain the hormone is made: in the nerves of the dorsomedial hypothalamus. Th...

It's in the genes: Study opens door to new treatment of the blues

...dition. Carlos Bolanos, an assistant professor of psychology and neuroscience, was among a team of researchers that identified the role of a gene called Brain Derived Neurotrophic Factor (BDNF) in the development of social aversion. Mice treated with a transfer technique to block expression of the BDNF gene in...

Alzheimer's found to be mostly genetic

... Medical Association. Margaret Gatz, professor of psychology in the USC College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences, led an international team of researchers from Göteborg University, Jönköping University and Karolinska Institutet in Sweden, as well as from USC, the University of California at Riverside and the Uni...

Poison dart frog mimics gain when birds learn to stay away

...ing stimulus generalization, which is a really old psychology theory," says Darst, graduate student in integrative biology. "When they learned on the more toxic frog, they generalized." The harmless frogs can look like the less toxic poison frogs without losing any protection from predators. The result is sur...

Confidence in memory performance helps older adults remember

...ry," says lead author Margie Lachman, professor of psychology and director of the Lifespan Lab at Brandeis University. "Our study shows that the more you believe there are things you can do to remember information, the more likely you will be to use effort and adaptive strategies and to allocate resources effec...

Obese people are more sensitive to pain, suggests study

... Emery, the study's lead author and a professor of psychology at Ohio State University. "Additionally, our tests showed both groups had higher physical pain thresholds after the relaxation session. But the obese participants still had a lower threshold for tolerating the pain." "This is important because if an...

Bird brains shrink from exposure to contaminants

...The research team, including Iwaniuk's supervisor, psychology professor and Tier II Canada Research Chair Douglas Wong-Wylie, used American Robins to test the idea. Birds are more susceptible to the effects of pesticide residues and other contaminants in the environment than other animals. As well, American rob...

Evolutionary forces explain why women live longer than men

...ruger and co-author Randolph Nesse, a professor of psychology and psychiatry and director of the Evolution and Human Adaptation Program, argue that the difference in life expectancy stems from the biological imperative of attracting mates. "This whole pattern is a result of sexual selection and the roles that...

Thermal imaging shatters arousal gender gap myth

... women to reach peak arousal," said Dr. Irv Binik, psychology professor and founder and director of the Sex and Couple Therapy Service of Royal Victoria Hospital, which is part of the McGill University Health Centre (MUHC). Thermal imaging, or thermography, is infrared imaging using thermographic camer...

A reason why video games are hard to give up

...e president of Immersyve who earned a doctorate in psychology at Rochester, aimed to evaluate players' motivation in virtual environments. Study volunteers answered pre- and post-game questionnaires that were applied from a psychological measure based on Self-Determination Theory, a widely researched theory of ...

Computer-based 'games' enhance mental function in patients with Alzheimer's

...ker, Ph.D., professor of psychiatry, neurology and psychology at the University of Pittsburgh, and a co-author on the study. ...

Paying attention sets off symphony of cell synchronization

...Marcia Grabowecky, research assistant professor of psychology in Northwestern's Weinberg College of Arts and Sci...ering," said Satoru Suzuki, associate professor of psychology at Northwestern and co-author of the study. The results suggest that attention can make a stimulu...

Changing length of days reverses how estrogen affects aggressiveness in mice

... co-author of the study and postdoctoral fellow in psychology and neuroscience at Ohio State University. "It ...on," said Randy Nelson, co-author and professor of psychology and neuroscience at Ohio State. "There are now several studies showing that in some species estrogen...

UCLA: How does your brain respond when you think about gambling or taking risks?

...said. Sabrina Tom, a UCLA research assistant in psychology and lead author of the study, said the people who have the most deactivation in the reward pathways were also the most loss-averse. A woman in a bad marriage, Tom said, is not likely to leave unless she has prospects that are much better than what...

New measure of sexual arousal found for both men and women

...bodies," says Tuuli Kukkonen, a Ph.D. candidate in psychology at McGill University and lead author of the study. "I predict that the major physiological measure of sexual arousal for most future clinical trials of female sexual arousal disorder will be genital temperature as measured by thermography," accord...

Birds found to plan for the future

...arks a step forward in our understanding of animal psychology and cognition. This project was also supported with a Medical Research Council (MRC) Cooperative Grant....

Bumblebee house warming -- it takes a village

...ing to Sean O'Donnell, a UW associate professor of psychology and member of the research team. The researchers challenged colonies by removing their most active incubating workers and lowering the nest temperature. One group of bees was consistently involved incubating across a range of temperatures. In ...

Study shows hope for early diagnosis of Alzheimer's

...Memory Center, and with Dr. John Kounios, a Drexel psychology professor. “Individuals in the earliest stage of Alzheimer’s disease are often not aware of their progressing memory loss, and family members often believe the changes are simply due to aging,?Clark said. “Even the patient’s personal physician may...

Imaging pinpoints brain regions that 'see the future'

... says Karl Szpunar, lead author of the study and a psychology doctoral student in Arts & Sciences at Washing...rsity doctoral graduate now assistant professor of psychology at the University of Utah; and Kathleen McDermott, an associate professor of psychology in Arts &...

Mule deer moms rescue other fawns

...gical sciences at the University of Alberta and in psychology at the University of Lethbridge. "It was surprising just how indiscriminate mule deer females were. For example, the females that weren't even mothers also ran to the speakers to help fawns. That would not be expected if females were simply tryin...

Eavesdropping comes naturally to young song sparrows

...Michael Beecher, lead author of the study and a UW psychology and biology professor. Scientists study song learning in songbirds in part because it has a number of parallels with human language learning, and Beecher thinks eavesdropping also could play a role in how infants learn language. Sparrows in the w...

Putting feelings into words produces therapeutic effects in the brain

... Matthew D. Lieberman, UCLA associate professor of psychology and a founder of social cognitive neuroscience. ...elings; it just seems to have that effect. Popular psychology says when you’re feeling down, just pick yourself up, but the world doesn’t work that way. If you kn...