Psychology

Every once in a while a hilarious idea is actually well executed. Mommy Tummy 8.0 out of the Kanagawa Institute of Technology in Japan is looking to be one of those.

The idea is that a pregnancy simulator might help a dude (or a lady who has yet to experience the joys of pregnancy) better empathize with pregnant women.

Even setting aside the obvious issue that the simulator wearer is not experiencing hormonal changes, and that he can take the simulator off at any point (oh, the freedom), there is something downright bizarre about a man who appears to be pregnant. (See video below.)

Get past the oddity and the Mommy Tummy 8.0 is actually an impressive little (and then rather suddenly big) gadget. It comprises a water bag, touch sensor, acceleration sensor, and fetal air actuator to simulate the growth, weight, and even movement of a fetus.… Read more

After spending a relatively stressful weekend in St. Louis trying to find the perfect wedding dress, UCLA sociology Ph.D. candidate Kjerstin Gruys decided on the flight back to L.A.--which could arguably be dubbed the city of mirrors--that it was time for something drastic: a year without them.

This was back in March, and her "mirror, mirror...OFF the wall" project would include the six months leading up to (and the six months following) her October wedding.

So far so good, according to Gruys' near-daily blog posts. But as someone with only a tiny bathroom mirror … Read more

For those who can count very well, there is something vaguely infuriating about doing business with (or even living with) people who can't count past three.

Math, to some, seems so simple, so obvious, that looking at those who struggle with it turns the mathophile into a cruel beast.

Yet new research from Johns Hopkins University suggests that one's abilities at math might entirely be handed down by one's forefathers.

Time Magazine assisted in directing me to this research, which was published in a wonderful magazine called Developmental Science (Sample article: "Preschoolers joke with jokers, but … Read more

It's not just your mom who's telling you to sit up straight anymore.

Researchers from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel have developed a new training method that uses Webcam imaging to tell workers sitting at computers when their posture needs a boost.

In their six-week study of 60 university and hospital workers using the Webcam pop-up photo method, the researchers report in the journal Applied Ergonomics that while traditional ergonomic training and photo training both resulted in short-term improvements in posture, only the Webcam approach resulted in longer-term gains, and it had the most impact on … Read more

Japanese engineers have dispatched Paro the robot seal to comfort the victims of the March 3 earthquake and tsunamis in northern Japan.

Modeled on a baby harp seal, Paro is a therapeutic robot that responds to touch and voices. It's covered in tactile sensors and responds to petting by squealing. It's meant to soothe people who use it.

Developed by Takanori Shibata at Japan's National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), Paro has been used in nursing homes in Japan and overseas since 2003; eight generations have been produced. Studies have shown that Paro can lower stress levels in users and caregivers. It can also help dementia patients. … Read more

Anthony Weiner, your parents may have gotten your name right, but man, you were born a generation too soon.

Because while the pundits and researchers expound on the many reasons sexting is bad for us as individuals and a society, and while state legislators draft bills to expel students who sext from school, or to define sexting between minors as child pornography, it seems that these days, the student who sexts is far more common than the student who doesn't.

So say researchers at the University of Rhode Island, who are running three studies that examine the impact of … Read more

We've been told that social networking can make us depressed, envious, and filled with self-doubt, not to mention mess with our marriages.

Now, a new study out of Columbia University suggests another Internet-related side effect: All that Googling we're doing may be impacting our memory (which might not be a bad thing if it helps us forget all the scary things our online lives are supposedly doing to us).

The good news is our dependence on Internet searches isn't necessarily shrinking our cerebral cortexes or making us forget where we put our car keys. Instead, it's changing the way our brains organize and retain information, according to the study.

"Since the advent of search engines, we are reorganizing the way we remember things," Betsy Sparrow, a Columbia University assistant professor of psychology, said in a statement. "Our brains rely on the Internet for memory in much the same way they rely on the memory of a friend, family member, or co-worker."

In other words, the Internet has become a primary form of what psychologists call "transactive memory," or externally stored recollections that we know where to access when we need to. … Read more

Dr. Cal Lightman is about to be out of a job. The micro-expression expert central to the TV show Lie to Me could soon be joined by legions of fellow human lie detectors--but instead of squinting intently Lightman-style, they'll be wearing high-tech specs.

So hopes electrical engineer Rosalind Picard at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab, who recently shared a pair with journalist Sally Adee for the magazine New Scientist.

In her interview, Adee describes the sensation of wearing the glasses, which featured a blinking red light alerting her to the general confusion and utter boredom of … Read more

A study of almost 6,000 people trying to quit smoking cigarettes finds that those who receive regular motivational text messages are twice as likely to quit than those who receive neutral text messages thanking them for participating in the study.

The txt2stop trial, led by the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, measured cotinine (a chemical in tobacco) levels in the participants six months after participants reported to try quitting.

The randomly selected txt2stop group received five text messages a day for five weeks and then three a week for the following 26 weeks, with encouragements such as: "Cravings last less than 5 minutes on average. To help distract yourself, try sipping a drink slowly until the craving is over."

The txt2stop group was also able to text words such as "crave" and "lapse" to receive a motivating message during episodes of weakness and craving.

The control group, meanwhile, received only one message every two weeks thanking participants for being part of the trial.

Only 4.9 percent of the control group abstained from smoking throughout the six months, as determined through cotinine testing, while more than twice as many members (10.7 percent) of the txt2stop group succeeded.

"We are delighted with the results and hope that text motivation will now become a standard part of the quitting process," says Glyn Mcintosh of QUIT, which helped develop the text messages and find volunteers for the study.

The researchers, whose findings appear in The Lancet this week, say that txt2stop worked well across all age and social groups in the study.… Read more