http://medicalxpress.com/ en-us Medical Xpress internet news portal provides the latest news on Health and Medicine. Pay attention! It's a universal warning, which implies that keeping close watch helps us perceive the world more accurately. But a new study by Yale University cognitive psychologists Brandon Liverence and Brian Scholl finds that intense focus on objects can have the opposite effect: It distorts perception of where things are in relation to one another. The findings will be published in an upcoming issue of Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-09-isnt-believing.html Psychology & Psychiatry Wed, 07 Sep 2011 15:33:21 EST news234628386 (Medical Xpress) -- Crossing your arms reduces the intensity of pain you feel when receiving a painful stimulus on the hand, according to research by scientists at University College London. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-05-arms-relieves-pain.html Neuroscience Fri, 20 May 2011 12:43:48 EST news225114195 Studies have shown that meditating regularly can help relieve symptoms in people who suffer from chronic pain, but the neural mechanisms underlying the relief were unclear. Now, MIT and Harvard researchers have found a possible explanation for this phenomenon. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-05-benefits-meditation-neuroscientists-tune-distractions.html Neuroscience Thu, 05 May 2011 06:42:19 EST news223796520 Jenny Wan-chen Lee, a graduate student in Cornell University's Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management, has been fascinated with a phenomenon known as "the halo effect" for some time. Psychologists have long recognized that how we perceive a particular trait of a person can be influenced by how we perceive other traits of the same individual. In other words, the fact that a person has a positive attribute can radiate a "halo", resulting in the perception that other characteristics associated with that person are also positive. An example of this would be judging an attractive person as intelligent, just because he or she is good-looking. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-04-health-halo-effect-dont-food.html Health Sun, 10 Apr 2011 13:12:56 EST news221659963