Mind, features and articles | Educational Science

Sep 30, 2007

Brain Fast to Recognize Fearful Faces

People recognize a fearful expression faster than any other, a new study finds. Researchers at Vanderbilt University set out to test how quickly people become aware of fearful, neutral and happy expressions. Because human brains can process facial expressions with astonishing speed—in fewer than 40 milliseconds—the psychologists devised a way...

Sep 30, 2007

Scientist: Blood Helps Us Think

As it is pumped through blood vessels and delivers oxygen to brain cells, blood may actually help us think. Research done by scientists at MIT suggests that in addition to providing nutrients and oxygen to the body's cells, blood may affect the activity of neurons in the brain as it...

Aug 31, 2007

Modern Humans Retain Caveman's Survival Instincts

Like hunter-gatherers in the jungle, modern humans are still experts at spotting predators and prey, despite the developed world's safe suburbs and indoor lifestyle, a new study suggests. The research, published online this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, reveals that humans today are hard-wired to...

Jul 31, 2007

Brain Surgery: It Really Is Brain Surgery

This Behind the Scenes article was provided to LiveScience in partnership with the National Science Foundation. Everything changes after the surgeons open your skull. Your brain, and the tumor inside it, no longer fully float in their protective bath of cerebrospinal fluid. Gravity comes into play, as does the atmospheric...

Jun 30, 2007

Study Reveals Why We Learn From Mistakes

Researchers have pinpointed an area in the brain that alerts us in less than a second of an impending mistake so we don’t repeat it. Scientists have long known that mistakes are conducive to learning, suggesting the reason lies in the element of surprise upon finding out we are wrong....

Jun 30, 2007

Key to Good Marriage: Do the Dishes

The keys to a successful marriage: Be faithful, have great sex and do the dishes. So says a new survey of Americans, who have elevated helping with household chores to the level of fundamental requirement in a good relationship. Men and women shared similar views on the issue of helping...

May 31, 2007

Origin of Deja Vu Pinpointed

The brain cranks out memories near its center, in a looped wishbone of tissue called the hippocampus. But a new study suggests only a small chunk of it, called the dentate gyrus, is responsible for “episodic” memories—information that allows us to tell similar places and situations apart. The finding helps...

May 31, 2007

Study: People Literally Feel Pain of Others

A brain anomaly can make the saying I know how you feel literally true in hyper-empathetic people who actually sense that they are being touched when they witness others being touched. The condition, known as mirror-touch synesthesia, is related to the activity of mirror neurons, cells recently discovered to fire...

Apr 30, 2007

Meditation Sharpens the Mind

Three months of intense training in a form of meditation known as insight in Sanskrit can sharpen a person's brain enough to help them notice details they might otherwise miss. These new findings add to a growing body of research showing that millennia-old mental disciplines can help control and improve...

Apr 30, 2007

Human Ancestor Had a Pea Brain

Higher primates such as humans are considered the brainiacs of the mammalian world. But a 29-million-year-old fossilized skull suggests that one of our remote ancestors was a bit of a “pea brain,” sporting a noggin smaller than that of a modern lemur. The skull belonged to a common ancestor of...

Mar 31, 2007

Bizarre Human Brain Parasite Precisely Alters Fear

Rats usually have an innate fear of cat urine. The fear extends to rodents that have never seen a feline and those generations removed from ever meeting a cat. After they get infected with the brain parasite Toxoplasma gondii, however, rats become attracted to cat pee, increasing the chance they'll...

Mar 31, 2007

TV Show Reveals Eye Contact is Top Cop Tactic

Cops might want to put down the billy club and forget about psychology, new research suggests. An analysis of the TV show COPS reveals that the best way for police to calm down hysterical citizens is to look them straight in the eyes. Gaze is important to everyday face-to-face interactions,...

Mar 31, 2007

How Sight and Sound Can Trick Your Brain

Auditory and visual information in the brain can conspire to trick us into seeing things that are not there, according to new research that suggests our senses are more intimately linked than previously suspected. Researchers found that subjects shown a single flash of light sandwiched between two tones in quick...

Mar 31, 2007

Knowledge Makes Learning Easier

We learn better when the material meshes with what we already know, according to a new study of rats that researchers say could help explain human learning. Scientists trained rats to associate six feeding areas with six different flavors of rat food. After six weeks of training in a constant...

Dec 31, 2006

Anxious? Talk it Out

Psychotherapy, or talk therapy, that identifies and corrects distorted thinking is effective at reducing symptoms in people with serious anxiety, a new review of research shows. About 5 percent of adult Americans at some point in their lives suffer from generalized anxiety disorder, a condition in which they worry about...