Social Sciences

Tokyo, Japan — Anxiety, commonly termed as a feeling of fear, dread, and restlessness, is a perfectly normal reaction to stressful situations. However, a state of heightened anxiety, which is the reality for thousands of people who struggle to cope with these feelings, is called anxiety disorder. Anxiety disorder can invoke debilitating fear or apprehension, […]

Pasadena, CA — Do you like the thick brush strokes and soft colour palettes of an impressionist painting such as those by Claude Monet? Or do you prefer the bold colours and abstract shapes of a Rothko? Individual art tastes have a certain mystique to them, but now a new Caltech study shows that a simple […]

Halle (Saale), Germany — A facial expression or the sound of a voice can say a lot about a person’s emotional state; and how much they reveal depends on the intensity of the feeling. But is it really true that the stronger an emotion, the more intelligible it is? An international research team comprised of […]

Burnaby, BC — New research from Simon Fraser University suggests that students learning remotely become night owls but do not sleep more despite the time saved commuting, working or attending social events.  The study, led by psychology professor Ralph Mistlberger, Andrea Smit and Myriam Juda, at SFU’s Circadian Rhythms and Sleep Lab, compared self-reported data […]

Turku, Finland — During a normal waking state, information is processed and shared by various parts within our brain to enable flexible responses to external stimuli. Researchers from the University of Turku, Finland, found that during hypnosis the brain shifted to a state where individual brain regions acted more independently of each other. “In a […]

Villigen, Switzerland — Researchers at the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI have for the first time observed photochemical processes inside the smallest particles in the air. In doing so, they discovered that additional oxygen radicals that can be harmful to human health are formed in these aerosols under everyday conditions. They report on their results today […]

Ames, IA — Parents would never give their children the keys to the car without supervised training and driver’s education. An Iowa State University researcher says parents and educators need to take a similar approach before handing children a keyboard to access the digital world.  ISU psychology professor Douglas Gentile worked with the DQ (Digital […]

Bochum, Germany — Scientists use many different tests to investigate what happens in the brain in people experiencing stress. It is unclear to what extent the various methods with which subjects are placed under stress are comparable to each other. In a meta-analysis, a biopsychology team from Ruhr-Universität Bochum compared 31 previous studies that had […]

Los Angeles, CA — For the first time in humans, investigators at Cedars-Sinai have identified the neurons responsible for cancelling planned behaviours or actions–a highly adaptive skill that when lost, can lead to unwanted movements. Known as “stop signal neurons,” these neurons are critical in powering someone to stop or abort an action they have already put in […]

La Jolla, CA — As scientists learn more about the microorganisms that colonize the body–collectively called the microbiota — one area of intense interest is the effect that these microbes can have on the brain. A new study led by Salk Institute scientists has identified a strain of E. colibacteria that, when living in the guts of […]

New York, NY — The United States incarcerates more residents than any other country, however there is limited research that examines how people view such punishment, and whether views about punishment change with development. Previous research on this topic raises two very different possibilities: 1) children are typically more optimistic than adults, making them more […]

Berkeley, CA — Whether at a birthday party in Brazil, a funeral in Kenya or protests in Hong Kong, humans all use variations of the same facial expressions in similar social contexts, such as smiles, frowns, grimaces and scowls, a new study from the University of California, Berkeley, shows. The findings, published today, Dec. 16, […]