neuroscience – Page 2

February 1, 2014December 23, 2016

Lavish Praise Can Backfire in Some Cases

Children whose self-esteem was at least 1.3 standard deviations below average reacted to lavish praise (“You made an incredibly beautiful drawing”) by becoming less willing to take on challenges, possibly out of fear that they might not be able to perform as “incredibly” well in the future, according to a study led by Eddie Brummelman of Utrecht University in the Netherlands. Children with high self-esteem did the opposite, responding to lavish praise by seeking greater challenges. Although many educators encourage parents and teachers to shower praise on pupils, adults should resist the temptation in the case of children who appear to have low self-esteem, the researchers say.

SOURCE: “That’s Not Just Beautiful–That’s Incredibly Beautiful!”: The Adverse Impact of Inflated Praise on Children With Low Self-Esteem

January 28, 2014December 23, 2016

To Detect a Lie, Don’t Think About It

Research participants who did puzzles for 3 minutes after hearing a series of true and false statements were about 6 times better than other people at figuring out which of the statements had been lies, according to a team led by Marc-André Reinhard of the University of Mannheim in Germany. The finding suggests that unconscious thinking (like the kind you do when you’re working a puzzle) gives people a chance to integrate the rich, complex information needed for accurate lie detection, and it supports a theory that deception judgments are largely driven by intuitions that may be inaccessible to the conscious mind, the researchers say.

SOURCE: Unconscious Processes Improve Lie Detection

January 5, 2014December 23, 2016

Exercise Sparks Creative Thinking

Have you ever hit a creative roadblock? Exercise might be the answer to overcoming mental blocks, according to a new study. The findings, published in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, revealed that people who exercise regularly are better at creative thinking compared to those who do not exercise.

October 30, 2013

Your Status Depends Partly on Your Upward or Downward Momentum

An individual who was said to have risen in status to become the fourth-ranked member of a 10-person team was viewed by research participants as having greater prestige (6.60 versus 5.24 on a 1-to-9 scale) than if he was said to have declined to become fourth-ranked, according to a team led by Nathan C. Pettit of New York University. In judging status, people appear to consider not only current position but also whether an individual has upward or downward “momentum,” the researchers say.

SOURCE: Rising Stars and Sinking Ships: Consequences of Status Momentum

October 28, 2013

What Do You Fail to Notice When You’re Hard at Work?

83% of two dozen radiologists who were searching for a lung nodule didn’t see the white outline of a standing gorilla that researchers had inserted into a computed tomography scan, even though it was 48 times the size of the average nodule, says a team led by Trafton Drew of Harvard Medical School. All of the participants reported seeing the gorilla when, after the experiment, they were shown the CT scan and asked if they noticed anything unusual about it. Past studies have demonstrated that people who are engaged in a task often fail to notice unrelated images and occurrences; the current finding suggests that this “inattentional blindness” affects even experts.

SOURCE: The Invisible Gorilla Strikes Again: Sustained Inattentional Blindness in Expert Observers

October 27, 2013

Simple Food Rituals Increase Enjoyment

See how the principle of scarcity is well and alive and tat it should be part of your marketing strategies.

People who were induced to follow ritualized behaviors such as stirring and pouring liquid and rapping their knuckles on a desk reported greater enjoyment of subsequent food-consumption experiences, says a team led by Kathleen D. Vohs of the University of Minnesota. For example, those who unwrapped and ate first one half, then the other half, of a chocolate bar rated its flavor as 5.58, on average, on a 1-to-7 scale, versus 5.22 among those who hadn’t followed the simple ritual, and their willingness to pay for the chocolate was 73% higher.

SOURCE: Rituals Enhance Consumption

October 25, 2013

Media Coverage of Terrorist Attacks Creates Its Own Adverse Effects

Watching 1 to 3 hours of TV coverage per day in the week after the 9/11 terrorist attacks predicted a 20% increase in reports of physician-diagnosed physical ailments such as asthma and hypertension 2 to 3 years later, says a team led by Roxane Cohen Silver of the University of California, Irvine. This and other findings from their survey data on more than 1,700 people strongly suggest that widespread media coverage of terrorism can have negative mental- and physical-health consequences over time, even for people not directly exposed to attacks.

SOURCE: Mental- and Physical-Health Effects of Acute Exposure to Media Images of the September 11, 2001, Attacks and the Iraq War

October 22, 2013

Music Based on Neuroscience

I was so happy to find this site.
It offers music based on Neuroscience.
According to the site, the music will help you relax and focus better.
The site is called: Focus @ Will

Here is what they have to say about it:
Listening to music with soothing aspects, that plays at 60 beats per minute, can decrease neural activity, and lead to a relaxed, but awake state called alpha state[11] that is defined by an increase in alpha brain waves and a decrease in higher activity beta waves. Increases in alpha waves have been tied to a psychological state of decreased self-awareness, timelessness, and motivation known as “flow”. Songwriters, musicians, writers, athletes, and meditators are all people who separately describe the same experience when flow state is reached.

Once flow state is reached how is it maintained, and for how long? We know that it takes approximately 20 minutes to get into a state of concentration, flow or not, in which you are able to habituate to irrelevant external stimuli[9]. Most people are able to maintain their concentration from a minimum of 20 to a maximum of about 40 minutes before having to take a break. Psychologists call this waning of attention the ‘vigilance decrement’, and suggest that it is due to either a reduction in cognitive resources or mindlessness and goal habituation. Some research suggests that a brief break can reduce this goal habituation and enable people to maintain vigilance for longer periods of time.

The entire process of maintaining focus for an extended period of time is not easy. It requires work on the part of your brain and is stressful[27]. An area of research devoted designing technologies that work with your brain to make work less effortful is called neuroergonomics.[28, 29, 30] Through neuroergonomics, technologies can produce experiences that enable your brain to feel less stress, and you to get more work done. That said you still need to be personally motivated to get to work and find your flow.

October 5, 2013December 23, 2016

Charismatic Character

Charismatic characters are great when used wisely in small business marketing. It creates an emotional connection and the character can even say things that wouldn’t be appropriate to team members.

In our company we have Apple the schnauzer. She writes in our printed magazine Engage and every now and then appears in one of our direct marketing campaigns.

Look how Virgin uses a charismatic character in its advertising.

October 1, 2013

High Deductibles Make U.S. Men Less Willing to Be Treated for Health Emergencies

As American employers shift health-care costs onto workers, more have been offering health plans with high deductibles. But those deductibles discourage male patients from seeking treatment, even for serious problems like kidney stones and irregular heartbeats. In the year following a transition to a high-deductible plan, men reduced their emergency-department visits for “high-severity” ailments by 34.4% in comparison with a control group, says a team led by Katy Kozhimannil of the University of Minnesota. Women, by contrast, continued to go to the ED for high-severity ailments, although they reduced low-severity visits.

SOURCE: When Health Deductibles Rise, Men Delay Emergency Care