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[Interesting Facts]

How to cut in front of a line (persuasion tactic) 1 0
Posted by bio_man   May 16, 2023   1243 views
A Harvard researcher, Ellen Langer (1978), studied the effects of asking someone for a favor while giving them a reason for why it was needed. Langer had an accomplice approach a line of people waiting for a copy machine in a library. The accomplice made the request to jump to the front of the line in one of three ways. One request simply stated that the accomplice had only five pages to copy, so would it be okay if they went to the front of the line. Another request also stated that they had only five pages to copy, but it also included the accomplice saying that they needed to jump to the front of the line because they were in a rush. In response to the first request, only 60 percent of those waiting in line allowed the accomplice to jump ... Read more
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[Research]

A link between depression and heart disease 1 0
Posted by bio_man   May 16, 2023   1051 views
For quite some time it's been known in the medical community that a link exists between depression and heart disease. For example, large epidemiological surveys typically find that 1.5 to 3 percent of the population is depressed at any given time. Among patients with heart disease, however, the rate of depression is closer to 18 percent. Similarly, about 1 in 6 people in the general population has an episode of major depression during their lifetimes, compared to about 50 percent of people with heart disease. Finally, a Canadian study revealed that of 222 patients who had suffered heart attacks, those who were depressed were four times as likely to die within the next 6 months. Amassing this evidence is one thing, but explaining it is quite ... Read more
Heart disease depression Medicine
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[Others]

How Selective Breeding is Used in Behavioral Genetics 0 0
Posted by bio_man   April 12, 2023   672 views
One of the methods used by behavioral geneticists is selective breeding. Selective breeding often involves selecting animals that are very different on one measure of behavior. For instance, if scientists take 20 rats and test how quickly they can solve a maze, chances are that they will get some variability in the speed with which the rats can solve the maze. Scientists would take the two fastest animals and the two slowest animals and breed them together. They would continue to do this over 20 generations, until they had a group of animals that solved the maze very rapidly and a group of animals that solved the maze very slowly. They are then able to examine potential differences in their brains and behaviors that contribute to maze solvi ... Read more
genetics animal breeding mice
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[Others]

Types of Fallacies in Reasoning 1 0
Posted by bio_man   April 9, 2023   634 views
We often have lapses in critical thinking as we speak and write. A fallacy is a belief or argument that rests on invalid or false inference that is logically unsound. Fallacies are often used unintentionally, but they are also used intentionally when an effort is being made to deceive or mislead the listener or reader. 1. "If you know about BMW, you either own one or you want one." What's wrong with this statement? It is an example of the fallacy called false alternatives. It is also called dualistic or black-and-white thinking and bifurcation. The fallacy occurs when it is presumed that a classification is exclusive or exhaustive. It often takes the form of overlooking alternatives that exist between two polar opposites. Here is another examp ... Read more
Cognition Speech Fallacy Debate Argument
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[Research]

A scientific explanation for déjà vu 1 0
Posted by bio_man   March 10, 2023   1885 views
People are fascinated by the topic of déjà vu, or the feeling that one is reliving some prior experience. The déjà vu phenomenon has been investigated by psychologists throughout the history of the discipline, and a number of theories — neurological, supernatural, pathological, and otherwise — have been proposed to explain its presumed occurrence. A team of Dutch researchers, led by Herman Sno, have investigated the topic at length in recent years. Sno and his colleagues argue that the déjà vu experience can be examined using the hologram as a model. In holographic photography, each piece of an image contains the full information necessary to reproduce the image, a property that gives holographic images their three-dimensional qualities. T ... Read more
Memory psychology
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