But it’s actually good to go through the insane despair and bouts of endless tears that result from being dumped, contends bestselling author and relationship expert Susan Piver. We should embrace these feelings rather than run from them, she argues in her book, The Wisdom of a Broken Heart. “As unlikely as it may sound, this sorrow is the gateway to lasting happiness,” she writes, speaking of her own two-year experience recovering from heartbreak. Piver and other experts described ways to ride through those uninvited waves of grief.
“Honestly, we didn’t actually know what to expect,” admitted “Lion King” cast member Ben Jeffrey, who plays the supporting lead role of Pumbaa, the warthog. “There was a pretty constant amount of noise — sort of a sensory overload for everyone. But you really got feedback during the performance. You could see that the music, in particular, seemed to have a very strong effect. You could actually hear the hush coming over the house when it started to play,” he said.
Ruvio and a colleague used 134 surveys of men and women in Israel, average age 23.5 years, to examine the influence of personality, attitudes and values on driving. The researchers also looked at the factors of risk attraction, impulsivity, driving as a hedonistic activity and perceptions about time pressures among another 298 people.
The study authors found that people who believe their car is a reflection of their self-identity are more likely to drive aggressively and disobey the rules of the road, and that people with compulsive tendencies are more likely to drive aggressively without regard for potential consequences.
Supernatural-phenomena skeptics provide scientific explanations and other alternative takes on strange occurrences.
Researchers assigned 4 year olds to watch Spongebob or the slower-paced educational cartoon Caillou for nine minutes, or to draw freely with markers. Immediately after, the kids took mental function tests to see how well they solved problems, followed rules, and remembered what they were told, for example. SpongeBob viewers performed significantly worse than their peers, according to findings published today in Pediatrics. Only 15 percent passed the problem-solving task, for example, compared with 35 percent of Caillou viewers and 70 percent of those who spent time drawing. Fast-paced shows revolving around unrealistic events are likely detrimental because they overstimulate the brain, making it harder to maintain focus, plan, organize, and control inappropriate behaviors, the researchers speculate.
Many new mothers feel a bit anxious about caring for their infant. But sometimes that concern develops into an obsession over all the things that can go wrong.
Experts call that condition postpartum obsessive compulsive disorder. It can drive women to take extreme steps to prevent their fears from coming true, such as endlessly washing the infant to stave off germs to the point where the baby develops sores, or refusing to hold the baby out of fear of dropping him.
"The study, published in the Aug. 15 online edition of the journal Psychological Science, found the readers overwhelmingly preferred the spoiled versions of ironic-twist stories. Knowing how mysteries ended actually improved the stories for the readers, the researchers added. Although they liked the literary stories least of all, the readers still preferred the spoiled versions over those left unchanged."
— Story ‘Spoilers’ May Boost Enjoyment: Readers seem to prefer books when the introduction gives away the ending, study shows
“Our findings suggest that parents should not be overly concerned that late-talking at age 2 years will result in enduring language and psychological difficulties for the child. There is good evidence that most late-talking children will catch up to the language skills of other children,” said Whitehouse. “The best thing that parents can do is provide a rich language-learning environment for their children,” he added. “This means getting down on the floor and playing with their child, talking with them, reading to them, interacting with them at their level.”
Over an average of five years, those who were the most socially active experienced only one-fourth the rate of cognitive decline as those with the lowest levels of social activity. The effect was independent of other factors that can play a role in cognitive decline, such as age, physical activity and general health.
"The team designed an experiment to test whether the dogs would notice a ball that inexplicably grew or shrank. In some trials, for instance, a tennis ball-sized ball would roll behind a screen, and after a short wait, a larger ball would appear on the other side. When the ball was a different size after emerging from the screen, female dogs stared at it longer than they did a ball of the expected size, an indication to Müller and his colleagues that the females had noticed something amiss. In contrast, male dogs looked at the surprising ball and the ball of the expected size for similar amounts of time."
— “Great (Dane) Minds Don’t Think Alike” — Female and male dogs react differently to the same thing
"The investigators found that men typically want women’s faces to have feminine shape and feminine reflectance (such as plump lips and wide eyes), while women typically want men’s faces to have masculine reflectance (such as swarthier skin) but a feminine shape."
"But when there was cold, hard money involved, the data changed. A lot. A whopping 96 percent of people in the scanner chose to administer shocks for cash."
"Steketee and colleagues recently interviewed animal hoarders for a study and found that many came from chaotic childhood environments and had problems with early attachment experiences with the parental figures in their lives. They also had more mental health concerns and dysfunctional relationships as adults."
Most people already know the cultural advantages of learning foreign languages, but now it appears there are also health benefits to being able to speak in more than one tongue, said lead researcher Magali Perquin, of the Center for Health Studies from the Public Research Center for Health in Luxembourg.
“People who practice different languages might develop particular cognitive processes that may help them to be more resistant to brain aging and cognitive decline when getting old,” Perquin added. “It might even provide additional motivation to learn new languages, which is quite interesting.”
Both male and female players reported playing Grand Theft Auto, Final Fantasy and NHL (National Hockey League) games. Males also listed the fighting games Call of Duty and Tekken in their top five. Females preferred playing Guitar Hero and Rock Band or the go-kart game Mario Kart to the violent videos, according to the study. The researchers showed 150 images — positive, neutral and negative — to the study volunteers. Bowen said some of the images were violent and disturbing, such as a picture of a man holding gun to a woman’s head.
An hour later, the researchers showed the study volunteers the images again, but randomly mixed in additional pictures as distracters. If video gamers’ brains had been desensitized from playing video games, the researchers theorized that they should be less able to recall the violent images.
But they found no differences in recall between the two groups. And, the gamers and non-gamers reported similar levels of physical arousal from the images, and described similar feelings when viewing the photos.
