http://www.physorg.com/ en-us Physorg.com internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. (PhysOrg.com) -- A new University of Pittsburgh study reveals that craving a cigarette while performing a cognitive task not only increases the chances of a person's mind wandering, but also makes that person less likely to notice when his or her mind has wandered. http://www.physorg.com/news179430373.html Medicine & Health Mon, 07 Dec 2009 20:10:02 EST news179430373 (PhysOrg.com) -- Should parents let their children believe in Santa Claus? http://www.physorg.com/news179429017.html Medicine & Health Mon, 07 Dec 2009 17:40:08 EST news179429017 Although the actual interruption may only last a few moments, the study shows that we then lose more time when we try to find our place and resume the task that was interrupted. http://www.physorg.com/news179379326.html Medicine & Health Mon, 07 Dec 2009 03:37:10 EST news179379326 (PhysOrg.com) -- You can teach an old dog new tricks, say UCLA scientists who found that middle-aged and older adults with little Internet experience were able to trigger key centers in the brain that control decision-making and complex reasoning after just one week of surfing the Web. http://www.physorg.com/news175180074.html Medicine & Health Mon, 19 Oct 2009 14:40:01 EST news175180074 Have you ever sat down to work on a crossword puzzle only to find that afterwards you haven't the energy to exercise? Or have you come home from a rough day at the office with no energy to go for a run? http://www.physorg.com/news173019710.html Medicine & Health Thu, 24 Sep 2009 14:02:15 EST news173019710 The calming neurological effects of nicotine have been demonstrated in a group of non-smokers during anger provocation. Researchers writing in BioMed Central's open access journal Behavioral and Brain Functions suggest that nicotine may alter the activity of brain areas that are involved in the inhibition of negative emotions such as anger. http://www.physorg.com/news159774124.html Medicine & Health Fri, 24 Apr 2009 06:45:36 EST news159774124 (AP) -- To design Windows 7, Microsoft analyzed billions of pieces of data. It studied exactly what PC users do in front of their screens. It tallied hundreds of thousands of Windows surveys. It got feedback from people all over the world who tried different versions of the software. http://www.physorg.com/news159372461.html Technology Sun, 19 Apr 2009 15:08:15 EST news159372461 Even low levels of lead found in the blood during early childhood can adversely affect how the child's cardiovascular system responds to stress and could possibly lead to hypertension later in life, according to a study from the State University of New York (SUNY) at Oswego. http://www.physorg.com/news159191316.html Medicine & Health Fri, 17 Apr 2009 12:49:31 EST news159191316 Exerting self-control is exhausting. In fact, using self-control in one situation impairs our ability to use self-control in subsequent, even unrelated, situations. What about thinking of other people exerting self-control? Earlier research has shown that imagining actions can cause the same reactions as if we were actually performing them (e.g., simulating eating a disgusting food results in a revolting face, even if no food has been eaten) and psychologists Joshua M. Ackerman and John A. Bargh from Yale University, along with Noah J. Goldstein and Jenessa R. Shapiro from the University of California, Los Angeles explored what affect thinking about other people's self-control has on our own thoughts and behavior. http://www.physorg.com/news158253545.html Medicine & Health Mon, 06 Apr 2009 16:19:34 EST news158253545 (SACRAMENTO, Calif.) - Children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) show more variable or inconsistent responses during on 'working' or short-term, memory tasks when compared with typically developing peers, a study by UC Davis M.I.N.D. Institute Julie Schweitzer has found. http://www.physorg.com/news157124078.html Medicine & Health Tue, 24 Mar 2009 14:35:14 EST news157124078 Consciousness arises as an emergent property of the human mind. Yet basic questions about the precise timing, location and dynamics of the neural event(s) allowing conscious access to information are not clearly and unequivocally determined. Some neuroscientists have even argued that consciousness may arise from a single "seat" in the brain, though the prevailing idea attributes a more global network property. Do the neural correlates of consciousness correspond to late or early brain events following perception? Do they necessarily involve coherent activity across different regions of the brain, or can they be restricted to local patterns of reverberating activity? http://www.physorg.com/news156522772.html Medicine & Health Tue, 17 Mar 2009 15:33:48 EST news156522772 Researchers at Arizona State University show that having a more flexible approach to resolving an acute conflict interaction results in more frustration and anger. These are among the findings that Danielle Roubinov, an ASU doctoral student in clinical psychology, will present at the American Psychosomatic Society Annual Meeting on March 4. Roubinov and two other ASU researchers observed a sample of 65 undergraduate students role-playing a stressful task with a "neighbor" who was portrayed by a research assistant. http://www.physorg.com/news155457694.html Medicine & Health Thu, 05 Mar 2009 06:42:04 EST news155457694 With age comes the ability to better regulate emotions in order to not disrupt performance on a memory-intensive task, according to a study published in the March issue of the journal Psychology and Aging. http://www.physorg.com/news155387747.html Medicine & Health Wed, 04 Mar 2009 11:16:20 EST news155387747 Doodling while listening can help with remembering details, rather than implying that the mind is wandering as is the common perception. According to a study published today in the journal Applied Cognitive Psychology, subjects given a doodling task while listening to a dull phone message had a 29% improved recall compared to their non-doodling counterparts. http://www.physorg.com/news154937903.html Medicine & Health Fri, 27 Feb 2009 06:19:36 EST news154937903 A task force launched by President Obama to boost America's middle class will have to help retool beleaguered U.S. workplaces facing their most sweeping changes since World War II, a University of Illinois labor expert says. http://www.physorg.com/news154097008.html Other Sciences Tue, 17 Feb 2009 12:43:54 EST news154097008 Ask anyone working on a project, and the biggest complaint one hears is "There's not enough time." But instead of more time, maybe what they need is a change of perception. http://www.physorg.com/news153501798.html Medicine & Health Tue, 10 Feb 2009 15:24:14 EST news153501798 Maybe the Internet isn't just one massive predator preyground after all. Maybe our children are much safer in cyberspace than we thought. http://www.physorg.com/news151510052.html Technology Sun, 18 Jan 2009 14:07:32 EST news151510052 A blue ribbon task force, commissioned late last year to identify sustainable economic models to provide access to the ever-growing amount of digital information in the public interest, has issued its interim report. The report calls the current situation urgent, and details systemic pitfalls in developing economic models for sustainable access to digital data. http://www.physorg.com/news148665742.html Technology Tue, 16 Dec 2008 16:02:22 EST news148665742 When faced with a difficult decision, we try to come up with the best choice by carefully considering all of the options, maybe even resorting to lists and lots of sleepless nights. So it may be surprising that recent studies have suggested that the best way to deal with complex decisions is to not think about them at all -that unconscious thought will help us make the best choices. Although this may seem like an appealing strategy, new research in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, cautions that there are limitations in the efficacy of unconscious thought making the best decisions. http://www.physorg.com/news148068036.html Medicine & Health Tue, 09 Dec 2008 18:00:36 EST news148068036 Research led by Psychology researchers at the University of Warwick reveals that cell phone conversations impair drivers' visual attention to such a degree that it can add over 5 metres to the braking distance of a car travelling at 60 miles and causes almost twice as many errors as drivers driving without the distraction of a hands free cell phone conversation. http://www.physorg.com/news147531138.html Other Sciences Wed, 03 Dec 2008 12:52:18 EST news147531138 When picking through a basket of fruit, it doesn't seem very difficult to recognize a green pear from a green apple. This is easy, thanks to "feature binding" - a process by which our brain combines all of the specific features of an object and gives us a complete and unified picture of it. http://www.physorg.com/news146229156.html Medicine & Health Tue, 18 Nov 2008 11:12:36 EST news146229156 A computer model that can predict how people will complete a controlled task and how the knowledge needed to complete that task develops over time is the product of a group of researchers, led by a professor from Penn State's College of Information Sciences and Technology. http://www.physorg.com/news145281421.html Medicine & Health Fri, 07 Nov 2008 11:57:01 EST news145281421 It has been shown (and probably experienced by all of us) that performing worse than our peers on a particular task results in negative self-esteem and poorer subsequent performance on the same task. How people respond when their peers perform better than they do has been studied in a variety of age groups and it turns out that preschoolers have thicker skin than adults do! Previous research has shown that preschoolers (4-5 year old children) maintain positive self-evaluations and high levels of performance even when they see that their peers have out-performed them. This is thought to occur because young children believe that achievement differences between themselves and their peers are adaptable; in other words, they think that if they try harder, they will be able to do as well as their peers in the future. http://www.physorg.com/news144592447.html Medicine & Health Thu, 30 Oct 2008 13:34:07 EST news144592447 It is not surprising that people are more willing to participate in a task if it does not require too much effort. What is interesting, however, is the way we determine just how easy a task will be and therefore, how motivated we are to complete it. New research from University of Michigan psychologists Hyunjin Song and Norbert Schwarz investigates how thinking about a task (i.e., how complex or simple it will be) affects our attitude toward the task itself. http://www.physorg.com/news144580532.html Medicine & Health Thu, 30 Oct 2008 10:15:32 EST news144580532 A group of sedentary and overweight older people placed on a four-month exercise program not only became more fit, but burned off more fat, compared to older sedentary people who were placed on a diet but did not exercise. http://www.physorg.com/news140862316.html Medicine & Health Wed, 17 Sep 2008 09:25:16 EST news140862316 Aging impairs the consolidation of memories during sleep, a process important in converting new memories into long-term ones, according to new animal research in the July 30 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience. The findings shed light on normal memory mechanisms and how they are disrupted by aging. http://www.physorg.com/news136569569.html Medicine & Health Tue, 29 Jul 2008 16:59:29 EST news136569569