http://medicalxpress.com/ en-us Medical Xpress internet news portal provides the latest news on Health and Medicine. Mahzarin Banaji shouldn't have been biased against women. A leading social psychologist—who rose from unlikely circumstances in her native India, where she once dreamed of becoming a secretary—she knew better than most that women were just as cut out for the working world as men. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-02-peering-decades-groundbreaking-bias.html Psychology & Psychiatry Wed, 27 Feb 2013 08:30:22 EST news281176175 (Medical Xpress)—People holding guns perceive other people holding guns, according to a new study published this fall by a Colorado State University researcher. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-12-people-guns.html Psychology & Psychiatry Thu, 20 Dec 2012 07:06:08 EST news275209556 People with perfect pitch seem to possess their own inner pitch pipe, allowing them to sing a specific note without first hearing a reference tone. This skill has long been associated with early and extensive musical training, but new research suggests that perfect pitch may have as much to do with genetics as it does with learning an instrument or studying voice. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-10-pitch-genes.html Psychology & Psychiatry Tue, 23 Oct 2012 12:50:01 EST news270215129 That snake heading towards you may be further away than it appears. Fear can skew our perception of approaching objects, causing us to underestimate the distance of a threatening one, finds a study published in Current Biology. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-10-skew-spatial-perception.html Psychology & Psychiatry Mon, 22 Oct 2012 04:10:18 EST news270097809 (Medical Xpress)—Researchers have taken a key step towards recovering specific brain functions in sufferers of brain disease and injuries by successfully restoring the decision-making processes in monkeys. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-09-prosthetic-device-impaired-decision-making-ability.html Neuroscience Thu, 13 Sep 2012 19:00:10 EST news266764211 (Medical Xpress)—Eyewitness identification evidence is often persuasive in the courtroom and yet current eyewitness identification tests often fail to pick the culprit. Even worse, these tests sometimes result in wrongfully accusing innocent suspects. Now psychological scientists are proposing a radical alternative to the traditional police lineup that focuses on eyewitnesses' confidence judgments. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-08-quick-decisions-witnesses-bad-guy.html Psychology & Psychiatry Tue, 28 Aug 2012 13:31:08 EST news265379448 New research published online in the scientific journal Addiction shows that plain packaging (requiring cigarettes to be packaged in standard packages without attractive designs and imagery) may help to draw the attention of some adolescent smokers to the health warnings on the package. If so, this may in turn deter young smokers from continuing to smoke. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-08-plain-packaging-cigarettes-young-smokers.html Addiction Tue, 07 Aug 2012 19:00:02 EST news263568605 Stroboscopic training, performing a physical activity while using eyewear that simulates a strobe-like experience, has been found to increase visual short-term memory retention, and the effects last for 24 hours. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-07-strobe-eyewear-visual-memory.html Psychology & Psychiatry Mon, 23 Jul 2012 17:10:31 EST news262282217 In a new study that has implications for distracted drivers, researchers found that people are better at juggling some types of multitasking than they are at others. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-07-multitasking-dangerous.html Psychology & Psychiatry Mon, 23 Jul 2012 12:35:17 EST news262265685 Like a lot of Americans, Amalie Drury has grown very attached to her smartphone. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-07-electronic-screens-night-linked-loss.html Health Wed, 11 Jul 2012 10:50:01 EST news261221176 The human brain can recognize thousands of different objects, but neuroscientists have long grappled with how the brain organizes object representation; in other words, how the brain perceives and identifies different objects. Now researchers at the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL) and the MIT Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences have discovered that the brain organizes objects based on their physical size, with a specific region of the brain reserved for recognizing large objects and another reserved for small objects. Their findings, to be published in the June 21 issue of Neuron, could have major implications for fields like robotics, and could lead to a greater understanding of how the brain organizes and maps information. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-06-big-small-brain-discerning-size.html Neuroscience Wed, 20 Jun 2012 12:00:07 EST news259411418 (Medical Xpress) -- A theory that has been widely accepted for many years can be overturned: our short-term memory does not limit itself to remembering four to seven things at the same time. Groundbreaking research demonstrates that we can remember far more elements at once. However, the more we remember the poorer the quality of the information we retain. NWO researcher Dr. Ronald van den Berg and his supervisor professor Whee Ky Ma conclude this on the basis of various experiments. The researchers recently published their findings in the renowned scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-06-short-term-memory-flexible-thought.html Psychology & Psychiatry Tue, 19 Jun 2012 08:40:01 EST news259313066 New research from psychologists at the Universities of Exeter and Cardiff shows that people can train their brains to become less impulsive, resulting in less risk-taking during gambling. The research could pave the way for new treatments for people with addictions to gambling, drugs or alcohol as well as impulse-control disorders, such as ADHD. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-06-people-inhibit-movements-risk-taking.html Psychology & Psychiatry Thu, 14 Jun 2012 10:50:47 EST news258889681 In a discovery that could help in the identification and treatment of anxiety disorders, Michigan State University scientists say the brains of anxious girls work much harder than those of boys. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-06-anxious-girls-brains-harder.html Psychology & Psychiatry Tue, 05 Jun 2012 11:00:42 EST news258112549 After seeing faces for less than a blink of an eye, college students have accuracy greater than mere chance in judging others' sexual orientation. Their "gaydar" persisted even when they saw the photos upside-down, and gay versus straight judgments were more accurate for women's faces than for men's. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-05-gaydar-automatic-accurate-women-psychologists.html Psychology & Psychiatry Wed, 16 May 2012 12:18:17 EST news256389488 In the fast-paced world of health care, doctors are often pressed for time during patient visits. Researchers at the University of Missouri developed a tool that allows doctors to view electronic information about patients' health conditions related to diabetes on a single computer screen. A new study shows that this tool, the diabetes dashboard, saves time, improves accuracy and enhances patient care. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-11-tool-diabetes.html Health Fri, 18 Nov 2011 11:08:47 EST news240836918 Viewing two-dimensional images of the environment, as they occur in computer games, leads to sustained changes in the strength of nerve cell connections in the brain. In Cerebral Cortex, Prof. Dr. Denise Manahan-Vaughan and Anne Kemp of the RUB Department for Neurophysiology report about these findings. When the researchers presented rats with new spatial environments on a computer screen, they observed long-lasting changes in the communication between nerve cells in a brain structure which is important for long-term memory (hippocampus). Thus, the researchers showed for the first time that active exploration of the environment is not necessary to obtain this effect. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-09-two-dimensional-viewing-images-long-term-nerve.html Neuroscience Mon, 26 Sep 2011 10:05:17 EST news236250291 Over half the world's population speaks more than one language. But it's not clear how these languages interact in the brain. A new study, which will be published in an upcoming issue of Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, finds that Chinese people who are fluent in English translate English words into Chinese automatically and quickly, without thinking about it. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-06-fluent-english-speakers-chinese-automatically.html Psychology & Psychiatry Tue, 14 Jun 2011 14:47:05 EST news227281610 Multitaskers who think they can successfully divide their attention between the program on their television set and the information on their computer screen proved to be driven to distraction by the two devices, according to a new study of media multitasking by Boston College researchers. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-05-media-multitasking-multi-distracting.html Psychology & Psychiatry Mon, 02 May 2011 04:13:19 EST news223528374