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Admit it.  When you see someone stumble and fall, you can't help looking.  People seeing you looking will look, too. It's called "gaze following," and although it's been demonstrated in dozens of species, researchers have theorized that it may develop in a unique way in humans, because it plays a critical role in learning and socialization. Researchers, who have studied this in monkeys, believe it has deep evolutionary roots, according to newswise.com. "Even though it seems like it's a very simple thing, this is a foundational social and cognitive skill that humans have. And there has been little research on how this skill develops in other species," says Alexandra Rosati, Assistant Professor of Human Evolutionary Biology and the first author of the study.   "This is the largest study ever looking at gaze-following in monkeys. We followed how this skill developed through their whole lifespan and examined the psychological mechani...

It doesn't take a genius to figure this out but challenging work tasks may be a good thing for our brain. Duh, right?  But a new study has found that professionals whose jobs require more speaking, developing strategies, conflict resolution and managerial tasks may experience better protection against memory and thinking decline in old age than their co-workers, according to a new study published in the April 29 issue of the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. “Our study is important because it suggests that the type of work you do throughout your career may have even more significance on your brain health than your education does,” says study author Francisca S. Then, PhD, with the University of Leipzig in Germany, at newswise.com. “Education is a well-known factor that influences dementia risk.”  So much for crossword puzzles and exercise! For the study, 1,054 people over the age of 75 were given tests that measured their memory and thinking...

Did you know your weight can affect your personality?  Really.  Though it's gaining weight that does it. "If mind and body are intertwined, then if one changes the other should change too,” Angelina Sutin, author of a recent study, said in a newswise.com article. According to the Web site, Sutin's study found that participants who had at least a 10% increase in weight also showed a rise in impulsiveness, "with a greater tendency to give in to temptations — compared to those whose weight was stable." The data didn't show whether increased impulsiveness was a cause or an effect of gaining weight, the story reported, "but they do suggest an intimate relationship between a person’s physiology and his or her psychology."     A surprising additional, and, to me, exact opposite finding was that, though those who had gained weight were much more impulsive, they also had a greater tendency to think through their decisions, compared to those who st...

Ever sat in a wobbly chair? According to new research, "It makes us judge others’ relationships to be unstable. Wearing a white lab coat, thought to be a doctor’s coat, helps our concentration and focus. Literally washing our hands rids us of guilty feelings," Christie Nicholson writes at smartplanet.com.  We've known for some time that the body can affect the mind -- relax and you'll get pregnant (not true!), think of the audience in underpants when nervous before a speech, don't walk under a ladder.  Oh wait, that's a superstition. But still we believe it and it can sometimes actually make us trip or fall down stairs or have some kind of accident, when we do. But now it's becoming clear to researchers that our bodies can affect our minds.  Nicholson did a Q&A with Art Glenberg, who she described in her story as one of the "founding fathers of the embodied cognition field," and a pyschology professor at Arizona State University. In the i...

What if you were trying to decide whether to "love it or list it," or go to France for Christmas, or even, leave your spouse?  Now there's an app  for that. http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/bulletin/an-app-to-model-lifes-big-decisions/7447?tag=nl.e660&s_cid=e660