Osu!
So I have this book called
Weird-o-Pedia by Alex Palmer which is full of random facts about all
kinds of stuff. I noticed some of the facts were (sometimes
tangentially) mind control-related, so I thought I'd list as many as I
could here. Sorry if this post gets kinda long, but I hope it's
interesting at least.
Food & Drink
Thinking about fast food makes you work faster. At least that was the case for a group of college students who were asked to read a page of text after some were exposed to images of fast food logos and others weren't. The ones who saw the logos read 20 percent faster.
Love & Sex
Women are more likely to dream about ex-boyfriends when they are ovulating. Researchers have found that women in long-term relationships have sexual desire for men other than their partner as they approach ovulation. So, if you're daydreaming about that biker dude from college, you might want to wait a week before giving him a call.
Women's tears reduce men's testosterone levels. A study by Israeli scientists found that women's tears emit chemical signals that are a hormonal turn-off for men. It's nature's way of saying, "Not now, honey."
Male testosterone levels also respond to the scents produced by women during ovulation. Researchers had men sniff a plastic bag with one of three shirts in it: a shirt worn by a women who was ovulating, one worn long after she had ovulated, and one never worn by anyone. Testosterone levels dropped upon smelling the non-ovulation or unworn shirts.
Kissing not only allows a partner to get a sense of their mate's hygiene habits, but also their DNA. Studies have found that women can subconsciously pick up on whether a man's genes are well matched to hers.
During a kiss, men pass along small amounts of testosterone in their saliva, which primes their mate's interest in sexual intercourse.
In fact, love is kind of like cocaine. Feelings of head-over-heels romance activate the same dopamine centers of the brain that respond to drugs like cocaine or amphetamines. So, love has the same effect as a high-powered painkiller.
Those looking for love might take a stroll to the local art museum. Blood flows to the pleasure center of the brain when a person looks at a painting they find beautiful, similar to what happens when you look at a loved one.
Most of a woman's brain turns off during orgasm. Brain scans find that activity rises in one sensory part of the brain, but falls in areas involved in alertness and anxiety as a woman climaxes. But when women fake orgasm, the part of the brain controlling conscious movement lights up.
Friends & Family
Seeing pictures of comfort food actually comforts people. A study from McGill University found that men who looked at photos of meat on a dinner table became calm, even though researchers expected that it would make them feel more aggressive.
On a kinder note: men get nicer after they get married. Nice guys may be more likely to get married in the first place, but studies have found that once married, men's antisocial behavior - such as breaking laws, failing to pay debts or acting aggressively - declines significantly.
Mind
Having trouble quitting smoking? You may first need to quit being impatient. A study from Oregon Health Science University found that 45 percent of smokers quit for good only after initially lapsing during the early weeks of cessation.
Destroying virtual cigarettes can ease nicotine addiction. A virtual reality game in which subjects crushed as many cigarettes as possible for half an hour a week over three months led to 15 percent of them kicking the habit. So sometimes video games can be good for kids.
Venting anger does not actually get rid of it. Studies show that while throwing dishes or punching pillows might feel good for a moment, the more often you act on angry impulses, the more angry you will get next time something annoys you.
Minds are most likely to wander while a person is resting, working, or using a computer. They are least likely to wander when they are making love.
Next time you get hauled before a judge, try to get in front of him as early in the day as possible. People who have to make frequent judgments tend to suffer what psychologists call "decision fatigue" the more choices they have to make. The later in the day, the more likely it is that a judge (or quarterback or business executive) will make dubious calls and demonstrate less than clear-headed judgment.
This also shows that sometimes it really is a good idea to "sleep on it" when a tough choice has to be made. Your decision-making ability will be much sharper at the beginning of the day.
Smokers are much more likely to dream about smoking after they quit.
Sure, Botox paralyzes parts of your face, but it may also make it harder to feel emotions. One study of 40 women found that after using Botox, it took them longer to process sentences conveying happiness, sadness, and anger. Scientists believe this is due to Botox inhibiting the cues that facial expressions send to the brain, making Botox users' minds as plastic as their faces.
Fake smiles are bad for your health. Slapping on your game face might help you get through an awkward conversation or a dull meeting, but faking happiness takes its toll. Scientists tracked bus drivers, who are required to have frequent, friendly interactions throughout the day, and found that they tend to withdraw from their work while putting on a surface smile, and that by suppressing negative thoughts they actually made them more persistent.
We may soon be able to erase our deepest fears. Scientists have found ways to destroy traumatic memories in mice by breaking down a molecular "net" in the part of their brain responsible for making and altering memories. The mice, which had been conditioned to fear a sound that preceded an electric shock, quickly forgot about the traumatic experience. Here's hoping they can do the same to my terrified response to hearing Black Eyed Peas songs.
Artificial flavoring might be making you dumber. A study of New York students found that those who avoided foods with artificial flavors and preservatives performed 14% better on IQ tests than those who stuck with the additives.
Time to rethink that "dumb jocks" stereotype. A raft of studies find that exercise builds neural connections in the parts of the brain responsible for memory and mental function. Increased levels of physical activity have also been associated with making kids more focused, earning better grades, and higher scores on standardized tests. Sorry fellow nerds, time to go for a jog.
Emotions outlast the facts when it comes to what we remember. Amnesiac patients were shown clips about death and loss from films like "Forrest Gump" and "Sophie's Choice." Five to ten minutes after watching them, the subjects could not recall what they had seen earlier, but retained a sense of the strongly negative emotions.
Booze keeps your mind limber. Studies show that having a few drinks a week increases the expression of the NRI brain receptor that boosts learning and memory. A separate study found that seniors older than 75 who have about a drink a day are significantly less likely to develop Alzheimer's disease or dementia, according to research. Grandpa, that's one drink a day.
Watching someone else do something has been found to create a false memory of having done it yourself.
Repeating affirmations like "I am a lovable person" boosts the mood of people with high self-esteem, but makes those with lower self-esteem feel worse than they would have otherwise.
Ecstasy alleviates post-traumatic stress disorder. A study of war veterans found huge drops in PTSD levels in those who took the drug compared to those who didn't.
Procrastinators are less likely to put off work if they plan their play. Researchers have found that scheduling leisure activities made subjects better able to focus on their work and stick with it.
Men take greater risks than normal with their money when they're thinking about sex or romance. Women take fewer than normal.
Our greatest fear may be uncertainty. Scientists have found that the parts of the brain that produce feelings of fear (the amygdala and orbitofrontal cortex) are consistently more active when the stakes of a decision are unknown. Which might explain why, even though more people drown in the bathtub each year than suffer shark attacks, not too many people fear bathing (known as "ablutophobia", by the way).
We think we are spending less money when using credit cards versus cash. In one MIT study, students using a credit card for tickets to a Celtics game bid twice as much on average than those using cash.
Having to pee increases your willpower. Studies have found that the more someone "holds it in," the more likely they are to give a correct answer to a question or make a responsible choice that will result in a greater reward for the long term. The same thing happened when people made a fist or flexed their biceps, with subjects showing more restraint than those who were relaxed. Performing a physical act of self-control triggers a mental state of self-control.
But willpower works the opposite way as well. Research has found that giving in to urges creates a domino effect of impulsiveness. Gratifying the desire for one type of reward, like food or sex, makes it more likely a person will give in to another urge, like gambling or impulsive shopping. For example, men with charged-up libidos are more impulsive when making financial decisions.
Body
Background noise makes food taste bland. Blindfolded diners tasted less sweetness and saltiness in the food they ate when white noise played than when it was not. This may explain why airplane food is so bland. Or so the airlines would like us to believe.
It's impossible to tickle yourself. Researchers found that the cerebellum detects self-inflicted touch before it happens and alerts the rest of the brain to ignore the sensation. Go ahead and try it.
Work
Sarcasm from the boss improves worker creativity. Psychological research shows that people worked smarter, solving complex problems with more ingenuity, when a project was presented with a dose of sarcasm. The researchers found that the presence of anger in facetious comments helped focus the subjects' attention, while the teasing humor helped lighten it up enough to keep them motivated.
Also, naps are a great way to memorize things. German researchers found that people who studied a set of cards and tok a nap remembered 85 percent of the patterns. Those who didn't nap only remembered 60 percent.
Surfing the Internet actualy makes you a better worker. A study by the National University of Singapore found that subjects who broke up their work with periodic web-surfing sessions - similar to taking a coffee break - were more productive than those who just stuck to their work.
But this is not the case with other distractions, like emailing, texting, or making personal calls, all of which tend to require a full shift in concentration.
The most distracting sound in the world may be whining. A study-group was challenged to try doing basic math problems while listening to a range of different noises. From a crying kid to a table saw, it was during the whining that the most mistakes were made.
Overhearing one end of a conversation is more distracting than hearing both sides.
Getting fast feedback makes you perform better. Researchers at the University of Alberta found that subjects who had to make a public presentation gave stronger performances when they were told they would be getting graded right after speaking. When feedback was not promised, they did not do as well.
But being told you are wrong increases stubbornness. Studies have found that people are less likely to change their minds when a large number of people disagree with them. In one test, subjects were asked to choose between two pieces of furniture, and after a break they were asked again, with the added information that a certain number of people preferred the item they did not choose. When a large majority preferred the item they didn't choose, the subject was more likely to stick with his or her original selection.
Joking around at the office has been found to improve creativity, cohesiveness among employees, and overall performance. That doesn't mean Xeroxing your backside leads to a promotion.
Want to improve your posture at work? Take a photo of yourself. Ergonomists have found that an exceptionally effective way to get people to stop slouching is to show them images of themselves seated at their desks.
The smell of an anxious person increases your level of anxiety. Subjects in a study were asked to smell the armpit sweat of college students generated both before they took a test and also during exercise. The anxious, pre-test sweat activated parts of the brain related to empathy in the smellers. Thinking about smelling dozens of people's armpit sweat is activating the revolted parts of my brain.
"Washing your hands" of a decision is not just a metaphor. People are better able to distance themselves from guilt or stressful feelings about difficult moral decisions, as well as bland everyday decisions, by physically washing their hands.
Play
Good dancing is all in the neck, torso, and right knee. Psychologists in the UK have found that women are most attracted to men who move their upper bodies, vary their dance moves, and take up a lot of space. Swaying hips don't make much of a difference either way.
Meditation makes an excellent pain killer. In studies where subjects' legs were poked with a hot probe, those who had studied Zen meditation for 1,000 hours had greater pain tolerance than those who had little meditation experience. The meditators could handle temperatures of more than 10° Celsuis higher than the control group.
Even casual meditators can handle more pain. In a separate study, subjects who had done about an hour and a half of "mindfulness meditation" training reported a 40 percent decrease in pain intensity and a 57 percent drop in pain unpleasantness (morphine only reduces pain by about 25 percent).
Loud music on headphones or at concerts can cause hearing loss, but playing music at a normal volume can actually improve your hearing as you age. Studies have shown that older musicians are 40 percent better at hearing sentences over noisy background environments than non-musicians. Similar to memory exercises, musicians regularly focus on small tonal details of sounds that non-musicians neglect, allowing them to better pick up on words and conversations as well.
Spoiler alert: knowing the end of a story doesn't actually spoil it. UC San Diego psychology researchers had 30 subjects read 12 mystery or surprise-ending short stories by authors like John Updike, Roald Dahl, and Agatha Christie. Some subjects received a spoiler paragraph and others did not. For all but one story (Anton Chekov's "The Bet" for some reason), respondents significantly preferred reading the story after already knowing how it ended.
Resting in a hammock offers an easier, deeper sleep than resting in a stationary bed. Swiss scientists found that the rocking motion from a hammock caused nappers to fall asleep faster than when sleeping in a bed that did not move. But don't take their word for it, head out to the hammock and give it a test run yourself.
In-store music makes you spend more. While up-tempo music keeps crowds moving and mellow songs encourage browsing, a study by Texas Tech University found that playing classical music in a wine shop led shoppers to buy more expensive wine. They bought the same number of bottles when Top-Forty pop songs played, but bought the cheaper stuff. Like the old saying goes: don't go grocery shopping when you're feeling hungry or wine shopping when you're feeling classy.
Surfing the Internet actually makes you smarter. Brain scans of people between the ages of 55 and 78 found that those who surfed the web for an hour a day for 7 days activated parts of the brain involved in decision-making and working memory, while those who skipped the surfing showed little activity.
Around the House
It really is possible to be half asleep. Despite popular belief that the brain is either fully awake or fully asleep, U.S. and Italian researchers believe that neurons in different parts of the brain can shut off for brief periods, even while we are fully awake and active. These neurons are especially likely to go "off line" during long periods without sleep, so if you're feeling like you are not all there, you may be right.
Out & About
It may be possible to beat jet lag with food. Jet lag happens when our light-based internal clock gets thrown off, but this can be counteracted by getting our food-based clock on the same time as our destination. This may mean fasting for 16 hours, but you'll be ready for breakfast at the right time when you arrive.
Living in big cities may be driving you crazy. Imaging scans of people living in large urban centers show stronger reactions to stress than those who live outside cities.
City living may also make you more self-conscious. Psychologists have found that in urban areas where the number of available partners is very high, superficial appearance takes on a greater importance for finding partners and friends.
Commuters are more stressed than riot police or fighter pilots. Researchers compared the heart rate and blood pressure of people in all three professions and found commuters stuck in traffic were by far the most stressed, likely because of their lack of control compared to the others. Listening to awful drive-time radio DJs may also have played a role.
If that doesn't scare you: You will soon be able to steer a car with your thoughts. Technology developed in Germany allows a driver to connect with a computer using brain sensors that read mental commands like "right," "left," "accelerate," and "brake." Now if we could just connect the sensors to the GPS, we could sleep for the entire drive and let the computers do the work.
Want to eat less at a restaurant? Use a bigger fork. A study in the Journal of Consumer Research found that when diners at an Italian restaurant were given small forks, they ate more than when they used larger ones. To really cut back on calories, use a pitchfork.
Going up escalators makes you more generous than going down. A series of studies has found that people are more likely to donate to a charity table or offer more of their time to answering questions if they were going up to the next floor rather than heading down. The researchers hypothesize that the upward motion triggers unconscious feelings of altruism and beneficence that influence our actions.
Humans often miss things happening right in front of them. Psychological tests show that humans have surprisingly limited attention capacity, with drivers overlooking road hazards when talking on a cell phone; joggers failing to notice a fight; or volunteers being too focused on a given assignment to notice a person in a gorilla suit walk by. This is interesting, but what does it mean if all I see are people in gorilla suits?
Parents might want to think twice about dragging their teenagers out of bed for the painfully early school day. A raft of research has found that teens function best when sleeping from about 11 pm to 8 am, and that starting the school day later results in positive things like fewer teen car crashes, fewer cases of depression, and a decrease in late arrivals and dropouts.
Money actually can buy you happiness - if you're spending it on the right things. Researchers have found that spending money on experiences like concerts, family trips, or plays leads to higher levels of satisfaction than buying material goods.
Other ways to wring more satisfaction from your dollars:
Men are less likely than women to take up a store employee when they ask, "Can I help you find something?" A study of how consumers make wine-purchase decisions found that while men preferred impersonal sources, like online ratings or wine books, women were more likely to trust a personal suggestion, whether from a friend or family member or someone from a wine store.
Clothing stores might want to rethink hiring supermodel lookalikes to work at their stores. A study found that shoppers with low self-esteem are less likely to buy an item if they see a good-looking employee or fellow customer wearing it. That may explain why mannequins usually don't have heads.
Most of us are familiar with road rage, but in crowded cities there is a new scourge to look out for: Sidewalk Rage. Those suffering what researchers have dubbed "Pedestrian Aggressiveness Syndrome," are identifiable for their muttering, scowling, and bumping into fellow pedestrians, and general indifference to others' need for sidewalk space.
Insects
Researchers in Michigan have figured out a way to implant machinery into live beetles, using battery power to direct their movement. The batteries are charged by generators implanted into the insects' flight muscles. These cyborg beetles can be used for everything from search and rescue efforts, to surveillance, to environmental monitoring - and apparently to turn the planet into a real-life 50s B-movie.
A species of Costa Rican wasps may win the prize for "Nastiest Parasite on the Planet." The wasp attacks its host, the orb spider, known as Plesiometa argyra, temporarily paralyzing it and laying its eggs on the spider's abdomen. The spider regains consciousness and goes about its day of web building as if nothing happened. About two weeks after the attack, the larvae that are growing on the spider's belly, feeding on its juices, compel their hose to build a bizarre web - stouter and smaller than its usual. They then burst forth from the spider, killing it, and use the creepy web it built for them as a makeshift wasp's nest. Mother Nature can be really twisted when she wants to be.
Animals
It is possible to turn the memories of rats on and off with a switch. When signals between two parts of the rat's brain are interrupted, it immediately forgets how to do a task it has learned: pressing a lever in order to get a reward. When the signals resume, the rat remembers again.
Love can be deadly. That is certainly the case for rats infected with the parasite Toxoplasma gondii. The parasite can only reproduce in cats, so when it infects a rat, it tweaks its usual instincts, causing the smell of cat urine to charge up the neurons that would normally be triggered by another rat. The love-struck vermin seeks out the source of this arousing smell only to end up as Fluffy's dinner and provide the T. gondii with a lovely new host in which to reproduce.
That's about it!
Food & Drink
Thinking about fast food makes you work faster. At least that was the case for a group of college students who were asked to read a page of text after some were exposed to images of fast food logos and others weren't. The ones who saw the logos read 20 percent faster.
Love & Sex
Women are more likely to dream about ex-boyfriends when they are ovulating. Researchers have found that women in long-term relationships have sexual desire for men other than their partner as they approach ovulation. So, if you're daydreaming about that biker dude from college, you might want to wait a week before giving him a call.
Women's tears reduce men's testosterone levels. A study by Israeli scientists found that women's tears emit chemical signals that are a hormonal turn-off for men. It's nature's way of saying, "Not now, honey."
Male testosterone levels also respond to the scents produced by women during ovulation. Researchers had men sniff a plastic bag with one of three shirts in it: a shirt worn by a women who was ovulating, one worn long after she had ovulated, and one never worn by anyone. Testosterone levels dropped upon smelling the non-ovulation or unworn shirts.
Kissing not only allows a partner to get a sense of their mate's hygiene habits, but also their DNA. Studies have found that women can subconsciously pick up on whether a man's genes are well matched to hers.
During a kiss, men pass along small amounts of testosterone in their saliva, which primes their mate's interest in sexual intercourse.
In fact, love is kind of like cocaine. Feelings of head-over-heels romance activate the same dopamine centers of the brain that respond to drugs like cocaine or amphetamines. So, love has the same effect as a high-powered painkiller.
Those looking for love might take a stroll to the local art museum. Blood flows to the pleasure center of the brain when a person looks at a painting they find beautiful, similar to what happens when you look at a loved one.
Most of a woman's brain turns off during orgasm. Brain scans find that activity rises in one sensory part of the brain, but falls in areas involved in alertness and anxiety as a woman climaxes. But when women fake orgasm, the part of the brain controlling conscious movement lights up.
Friends & Family
Seeing pictures of comfort food actually comforts people. A study from McGill University found that men who looked at photos of meat on a dinner table became calm, even though researchers expected that it would make them feel more aggressive.
On a kinder note: men get nicer after they get married. Nice guys may be more likely to get married in the first place, but studies have found that once married, men's antisocial behavior - such as breaking laws, failing to pay debts or acting aggressively - declines significantly.
Mind
Having trouble quitting smoking? You may first need to quit being impatient. A study from Oregon Health Science University found that 45 percent of smokers quit for good only after initially lapsing during the early weeks of cessation.
Destroying virtual cigarettes can ease nicotine addiction. A virtual reality game in which subjects crushed as many cigarettes as possible for half an hour a week over three months led to 15 percent of them kicking the habit. So sometimes video games can be good for kids.
Venting anger does not actually get rid of it. Studies show that while throwing dishes or punching pillows might feel good for a moment, the more often you act on angry impulses, the more angry you will get next time something annoys you.
Minds are most likely to wander while a person is resting, working, or using a computer. They are least likely to wander when they are making love.
Next time you get hauled before a judge, try to get in front of him as early in the day as possible. People who have to make frequent judgments tend to suffer what psychologists call "decision fatigue" the more choices they have to make. The later in the day, the more likely it is that a judge (or quarterback or business executive) will make dubious calls and demonstrate less than clear-headed judgment.
This also shows that sometimes it really is a good idea to "sleep on it" when a tough choice has to be made. Your decision-making ability will be much sharper at the beginning of the day.
Smokers are much more likely to dream about smoking after they quit.
Sure, Botox paralyzes parts of your face, but it may also make it harder to feel emotions. One study of 40 women found that after using Botox, it took them longer to process sentences conveying happiness, sadness, and anger. Scientists believe this is due to Botox inhibiting the cues that facial expressions send to the brain, making Botox users' minds as plastic as their faces.
Fake smiles are bad for your health. Slapping on your game face might help you get through an awkward conversation or a dull meeting, but faking happiness takes its toll. Scientists tracked bus drivers, who are required to have frequent, friendly interactions throughout the day, and found that they tend to withdraw from their work while putting on a surface smile, and that by suppressing negative thoughts they actually made them more persistent.
We may soon be able to erase our deepest fears. Scientists have found ways to destroy traumatic memories in mice by breaking down a molecular "net" in the part of their brain responsible for making and altering memories. The mice, which had been conditioned to fear a sound that preceded an electric shock, quickly forgot about the traumatic experience. Here's hoping they can do the same to my terrified response to hearing Black Eyed Peas songs.
Artificial flavoring might be making you dumber. A study of New York students found that those who avoided foods with artificial flavors and preservatives performed 14% better on IQ tests than those who stuck with the additives.
Time to rethink that "dumb jocks" stereotype. A raft of studies find that exercise builds neural connections in the parts of the brain responsible for memory and mental function. Increased levels of physical activity have also been associated with making kids more focused, earning better grades, and higher scores on standardized tests. Sorry fellow nerds, time to go for a jog.
Emotions outlast the facts when it comes to what we remember. Amnesiac patients were shown clips about death and loss from films like "Forrest Gump" and "Sophie's Choice." Five to ten minutes after watching them, the subjects could not recall what they had seen earlier, but retained a sense of the strongly negative emotions.
Booze keeps your mind limber. Studies show that having a few drinks a week increases the expression of the NRI brain receptor that boosts learning and memory. A separate study found that seniors older than 75 who have about a drink a day are significantly less likely to develop Alzheimer's disease or dementia, according to research. Grandpa, that's one drink a day.
Watching someone else do something has been found to create a false memory of having done it yourself.
Repeating affirmations like "I am a lovable person" boosts the mood of people with high self-esteem, but makes those with lower self-esteem feel worse than they would have otherwise.
Ecstasy alleviates post-traumatic stress disorder. A study of war veterans found huge drops in PTSD levels in those who took the drug compared to those who didn't.
Procrastinators are less likely to put off work if they plan their play. Researchers have found that scheduling leisure activities made subjects better able to focus on their work and stick with it.
Men take greater risks than normal with their money when they're thinking about sex or romance. Women take fewer than normal.
Our greatest fear may be uncertainty. Scientists have found that the parts of the brain that produce feelings of fear (the amygdala and orbitofrontal cortex) are consistently more active when the stakes of a decision are unknown. Which might explain why, even though more people drown in the bathtub each year than suffer shark attacks, not too many people fear bathing (known as "ablutophobia", by the way).
We think we are spending less money when using credit cards versus cash. In one MIT study, students using a credit card for tickets to a Celtics game bid twice as much on average than those using cash.
Having to pee increases your willpower. Studies have found that the more someone "holds it in," the more likely they are to give a correct answer to a question or make a responsible choice that will result in a greater reward for the long term. The same thing happened when people made a fist or flexed their biceps, with subjects showing more restraint than those who were relaxed. Performing a physical act of self-control triggers a mental state of self-control.
But willpower works the opposite way as well. Research has found that giving in to urges creates a domino effect of impulsiveness. Gratifying the desire for one type of reward, like food or sex, makes it more likely a person will give in to another urge, like gambling or impulsive shopping. For example, men with charged-up libidos are more impulsive when making financial decisions.
Body
Background noise makes food taste bland. Blindfolded diners tasted less sweetness and saltiness in the food they ate when white noise played than when it was not. This may explain why airplane food is so bland. Or so the airlines would like us to believe.
It's impossible to tickle yourself. Researchers found that the cerebellum detects self-inflicted touch before it happens and alerts the rest of the brain to ignore the sensation. Go ahead and try it.
Work
Sarcasm from the boss improves worker creativity. Psychological research shows that people worked smarter, solving complex problems with more ingenuity, when a project was presented with a dose of sarcasm. The researchers found that the presence of anger in facetious comments helped focus the subjects' attention, while the teasing humor helped lighten it up enough to keep them motivated.
Also, naps are a great way to memorize things. German researchers found that people who studied a set of cards and tok a nap remembered 85 percent of the patterns. Those who didn't nap only remembered 60 percent.
Surfing the Internet actualy makes you a better worker. A study by the National University of Singapore found that subjects who broke up their work with periodic web-surfing sessions - similar to taking a coffee break - were more productive than those who just stuck to their work.
But this is not the case with other distractions, like emailing, texting, or making personal calls, all of which tend to require a full shift in concentration.
The most distracting sound in the world may be whining. A study-group was challenged to try doing basic math problems while listening to a range of different noises. From a crying kid to a table saw, it was during the whining that the most mistakes were made.
Overhearing one end of a conversation is more distracting than hearing both sides.
Getting fast feedback makes you perform better. Researchers at the University of Alberta found that subjects who had to make a public presentation gave stronger performances when they were told they would be getting graded right after speaking. When feedback was not promised, they did not do as well.
But being told you are wrong increases stubbornness. Studies have found that people are less likely to change their minds when a large number of people disagree with them. In one test, subjects were asked to choose between two pieces of furniture, and after a break they were asked again, with the added information that a certain number of people preferred the item they did not choose. When a large majority preferred the item they didn't choose, the subject was more likely to stick with his or her original selection.
Joking around at the office has been found to improve creativity, cohesiveness among employees, and overall performance. That doesn't mean Xeroxing your backside leads to a promotion.
Want to improve your posture at work? Take a photo of yourself. Ergonomists have found that an exceptionally effective way to get people to stop slouching is to show them images of themselves seated at their desks.
The smell of an anxious person increases your level of anxiety. Subjects in a study were asked to smell the armpit sweat of college students generated both before they took a test and also during exercise. The anxious, pre-test sweat activated parts of the brain related to empathy in the smellers. Thinking about smelling dozens of people's armpit sweat is activating the revolted parts of my brain.
"Washing your hands" of a decision is not just a metaphor. People are better able to distance themselves from guilt or stressful feelings about difficult moral decisions, as well as bland everyday decisions, by physically washing their hands.
Play
Good dancing is all in the neck, torso, and right knee. Psychologists in the UK have found that women are most attracted to men who move their upper bodies, vary their dance moves, and take up a lot of space. Swaying hips don't make much of a difference either way.
Meditation makes an excellent pain killer. In studies where subjects' legs were poked with a hot probe, those who had studied Zen meditation for 1,000 hours had greater pain tolerance than those who had little meditation experience. The meditators could handle temperatures of more than 10° Celsuis higher than the control group.
Even casual meditators can handle more pain. In a separate study, subjects who had done about an hour and a half of "mindfulness meditation" training reported a 40 percent decrease in pain intensity and a 57 percent drop in pain unpleasantness (morphine only reduces pain by about 25 percent).
Loud music on headphones or at concerts can cause hearing loss, but playing music at a normal volume can actually improve your hearing as you age. Studies have shown that older musicians are 40 percent better at hearing sentences over noisy background environments than non-musicians. Similar to memory exercises, musicians regularly focus on small tonal details of sounds that non-musicians neglect, allowing them to better pick up on words and conversations as well.
Spoiler alert: knowing the end of a story doesn't actually spoil it. UC San Diego psychology researchers had 30 subjects read 12 mystery or surprise-ending short stories by authors like John Updike, Roald Dahl, and Agatha Christie. Some subjects received a spoiler paragraph and others did not. For all but one story (Anton Chekov's "The Bet" for some reason), respondents significantly preferred reading the story after already knowing how it ended.
Resting in a hammock offers an easier, deeper sleep than resting in a stationary bed. Swiss scientists found that the rocking motion from a hammock caused nappers to fall asleep faster than when sleeping in a bed that did not move. But don't take their word for it, head out to the hammock and give it a test run yourself.
In-store music makes you spend more. While up-tempo music keeps crowds moving and mellow songs encourage browsing, a study by Texas Tech University found that playing classical music in a wine shop led shoppers to buy more expensive wine. They bought the same number of bottles when Top-Forty pop songs played, but bought the cheaper stuff. Like the old saying goes: don't go grocery shopping when you're feeling hungry or wine shopping when you're feeling classy.
Surfing the Internet actually makes you smarter. Brain scans of people between the ages of 55 and 78 found that those who surfed the web for an hour a day for 7 days activated parts of the brain involved in decision-making and working memory, while those who skipped the surfing showed little activity.
Around the House
It really is possible to be half asleep. Despite popular belief that the brain is either fully awake or fully asleep, U.S. and Italian researchers believe that neurons in different parts of the brain can shut off for brief periods, even while we are fully awake and active. These neurons are especially likely to go "off line" during long periods without sleep, so if you're feeling like you are not all there, you may be right.
Out & About
It may be possible to beat jet lag with food. Jet lag happens when our light-based internal clock gets thrown off, but this can be counteracted by getting our food-based clock on the same time as our destination. This may mean fasting for 16 hours, but you'll be ready for breakfast at the right time when you arrive.
Living in big cities may be driving you crazy. Imaging scans of people living in large urban centers show stronger reactions to stress than those who live outside cities.
City living may also make you more self-conscious. Psychologists have found that in urban areas where the number of available partners is very high, superficial appearance takes on a greater importance for finding partners and friends.
Commuters are more stressed than riot police or fighter pilots. Researchers compared the heart rate and blood pressure of people in all three professions and found commuters stuck in traffic were by far the most stressed, likely because of their lack of control compared to the others. Listening to awful drive-time radio DJs may also have played a role.
If that doesn't scare you: You will soon be able to steer a car with your thoughts. Technology developed in Germany allows a driver to connect with a computer using brain sensors that read mental commands like "right," "left," "accelerate," and "brake." Now if we could just connect the sensors to the GPS, we could sleep for the entire drive and let the computers do the work.
Want to eat less at a restaurant? Use a bigger fork. A study in the Journal of Consumer Research found that when diners at an Italian restaurant were given small forks, they ate more than when they used larger ones. To really cut back on calories, use a pitchfork.
Going up escalators makes you more generous than going down. A series of studies has found that people are more likely to donate to a charity table or offer more of their time to answering questions if they were going up to the next floor rather than heading down. The researchers hypothesize that the upward motion triggers unconscious feelings of altruism and beneficence that influence our actions.
Humans often miss things happening right in front of them. Psychological tests show that humans have surprisingly limited attention capacity, with drivers overlooking road hazards when talking on a cell phone; joggers failing to notice a fight; or volunteers being too focused on a given assignment to notice a person in a gorilla suit walk by. This is interesting, but what does it mean if all I see are people in gorilla suits?
Parents might want to think twice about dragging their teenagers out of bed for the painfully early school day. A raft of research has found that teens function best when sleeping from about 11 pm to 8 am, and that starting the school day later results in positive things like fewer teen car crashes, fewer cases of depression, and a decrease in late arrivals and dropouts.
Money actually can buy you happiness - if you're spending it on the right things. Researchers have found that spending money on experiences like concerts, family trips, or plays leads to higher levels of satisfaction than buying material goods.
Other ways to wring more satisfaction from your dollars:
- Buy several small treats instead of one big splurge. Pleasure fades whether the purchase was a three-week cruise or a weekend road trip, so quantity often trumps quality when it comes to shopping.
- Pay for something now and enjoy it later.
- Spend a bit on charity or a larger cause, which has been found to result in long-term feelings of satisfaction.
Men are less likely than women to take up a store employee when they ask, "Can I help you find something?" A study of how consumers make wine-purchase decisions found that while men preferred impersonal sources, like online ratings or wine books, women were more likely to trust a personal suggestion, whether from a friend or family member or someone from a wine store.
Clothing stores might want to rethink hiring supermodel lookalikes to work at their stores. A study found that shoppers with low self-esteem are less likely to buy an item if they see a good-looking employee or fellow customer wearing it. That may explain why mannequins usually don't have heads.
Most of us are familiar with road rage, but in crowded cities there is a new scourge to look out for: Sidewalk Rage. Those suffering what researchers have dubbed "Pedestrian Aggressiveness Syndrome," are identifiable for their muttering, scowling, and bumping into fellow pedestrians, and general indifference to others' need for sidewalk space.
Insects
Researchers in Michigan have figured out a way to implant machinery into live beetles, using battery power to direct their movement. The batteries are charged by generators implanted into the insects' flight muscles. These cyborg beetles can be used for everything from search and rescue efforts, to surveillance, to environmental monitoring - and apparently to turn the planet into a real-life 50s B-movie.
A species of Costa Rican wasps may win the prize for "Nastiest Parasite on the Planet." The wasp attacks its host, the orb spider, known as Plesiometa argyra, temporarily paralyzing it and laying its eggs on the spider's abdomen. The spider regains consciousness and goes about its day of web building as if nothing happened. About two weeks after the attack, the larvae that are growing on the spider's belly, feeding on its juices, compel their hose to build a bizarre web - stouter and smaller than its usual. They then burst forth from the spider, killing it, and use the creepy web it built for them as a makeshift wasp's nest. Mother Nature can be really twisted when she wants to be.
Animals
It is possible to turn the memories of rats on and off with a switch. When signals between two parts of the rat's brain are interrupted, it immediately forgets how to do a task it has learned: pressing a lever in order to get a reward. When the signals resume, the rat remembers again.
Love can be deadly. That is certainly the case for rats infected with the parasite Toxoplasma gondii. The parasite can only reproduce in cats, so when it infects a rat, it tweaks its usual instincts, causing the smell of cat urine to charge up the neurons that would normally be triggered by another rat. The love-struck vermin seeks out the source of this arousing smell only to end up as Fluffy's dinner and provide the T. gondii with a lovely new host in which to reproduce.
That's about it!
Comments
Post a Comment