news 2018

Listening to audiobooks elicits a more intense physiological and emotional reaction than watching films or television, according to a new UCL study. Commissioned by Audible, UCL research psychologists tested scenes from well-known stories across crime, sci-fi, fantasy, action and classical genres on 102 participants aged 18 to 55 to gauge the physiological impact of auditory versus visual storytelling mediums.

For the millions of Americans who work "nonstandard" shifts - evenings, nights or with rotating days off - the schedule can be especially challenging with children at home. But a new study from the University of Washington finds that consistent hours, at whatever time of day, can give families flexibility and in some cases, improve children's behavior.

The tendency for children to eat more or less when stressed and upset is mainly influenced by the home environment and not by genes, according to a new UCL-led study. The study, published today in Pediatric Obesity , found that genetics only play a small role in young children's emotional overeating and undereating, unlike other eating behaviours in childhood such as food fussiness.

The belief that interests arrive fully formed and must simply be "found" can lead people to limit their pursuit of new fields and give up when they encounter challenges, according to a new Stanford study. A new study by Stanford psychologists examines the hidden implications of the advice to " find your passion.

UCLA and University of Oslo researchers define the sensations associated with the emotion of 'kama muta' Jessica Wolf Researchers from UCLA and the University of Oslo have documented a complex but universally felt emotion they call kama muta — a Sanskrit term that means "moved by love." For the past five years they have documented the physical sensations people report when they feel kama muta, and what kind of events, images and experiences bring it about.

Researchers at the University of Glasgow suggest Robert Burns may have had bipolar disorder, according to a paper published in The Journal of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. More than 800 letters and journals have helped the academics to analyse the mental state of Robert Burns. The project also looked beyond Scotland's national bard's correspondence to his relationships and day-to-day life in a bid to establish if he had a psychiatric disorder.

For the first time, researchers have developed an online tool to help identify young people with emerging signs of mental health problems, such as psychosis. Nearly one third of the participants using the screening tool, which was created by researchers at the University of Glasgow's Institute of Neuroscience and Psychology, were found to be at risk for developing psychosis.

Carlos Grilo, PhD, Professor of Psychiatry and of Psychology and Director of the Program for Obesity Weight and Eating Research (POWER) at Yale, is the senior author of a new study published in Biological Psychiatry that revises the outdated estimates of the prevalence of eating disorders in the United States.

It's not every day that one receives a call from a researcher asking if they want to participate in a study on aging for the next 20 years of their lives. That's what 50,000 Canadians aged 45 to 85 have agreed to do in taking part of the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging (CLSA), one of the largest and most comprehensive studies on the health and well-being of the country's aging population.

Statistics on racial disparities should be paired with context, emphasis on importance of institutional policy in shaping inequality, Stanford scholars say In a new research paper, Stanford scholars Rebecca Hetey and Jennifer Eberhardt propose new ways to talk about racial disparities. Using statistics to inform the public about racial disparities can backfire.

Specially organised 'dementia friendly' swimming sessions can be beneficial to people with dementia and their carers, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Nottingham and the Institute of Mental Health. The team set out to find out what impact swimming sessions have on the lives of people with dementia and how they affect the experience of their carers.

Australian researchers, in partnership with disability organisations, today launch a landmark project ensuring people with intellectual disability understand the concept of death and are supported to cope with end-of-life. The Talking End of Life (TEL) project culminates in a world-first research-based online toolkit designed to support disability staff and carers to deliver end-of-life information to adults with intellectual disability, and discuss end-of-life planning.

Women with HIV are failing to get the support they need during menopause, according to a new study led by UCL. The PRIME (Positive Transitions through the Menopause) report, which is one of the largest of its kind, involving almost 900 women living with HIV aged 45-60 across England, found that 47% of women with HIV do not have the information they need to manage menopause.

Analysing the 2011 riots: Why the emotional impact extended far beyond the affected communities New research investigating the emotional effects of the 2011 riots across England has found that the negative impacts were felt by communities far removed from where the activity took place, with black neighbourhoods being particularly severely impacted.

Latest research from psychologists and neuroscientists points to subtle differences in brain connectivity impacting young people with Conduct Disorder. Last updated on Tuesday 1 May 2018 Research published today (Tuesday 1 May) has revealed new clues which might help explain why young people with the most severe forms of antisocial behaviour struggle to control and regulate their emotions, and might be more susceptible to developing anxiety or depression as a result.

Latest research combining social and political surveys with objective cognitive testing suggests that "cognitive flexibility" contributes to formation of ideology. The study finds correlations between cognitive thinking styles and support for Brexit.

It has been suggested that sexually objectified women or men are visually processed in the same fashion of an object. Far from being unanimously accepted, this claim has been criticized by a lack of scientific rigor. A team led by Giorgia Silani, in collaboration with Helmut Leder, of the University of Vienna, and scientists of the University of Trieste and SISSA have explored the conditions under which this phenomenon persists.

Separating fact from fiction in the age of alternate facts is becoming increasingly difficult, and now a new study has helped reveal why. Research by Dr Eryn Newman of The Australian National University (ANU) has found that when people listen to recordings of a scientist presenting their work, the quality of audio had a significant impact on whether people believed what they were hearing, regardless of who the researcher was or what they were talking about.

ANN ARBOR-No one likes smug knowit-all friends, relatives or co-workers who believe their knowledge and beliefs are superior to others. But now these discussions at the dinner table, bar or office might be less annoying. A new University of Michigan study indicates what many people suspect: these know-it-all people are especially prone to overestimating what they actually know.

But a scientific team led by the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in the Netherlands, supported by scientists from the University of Bristol, now demonstrates that the predictive function of the human language system may operate differently than the field has come to believe in the last decade.