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Asked by anon-283674 on 4 Mar 2021. This question was also asked by anon-286149, anon-286148, anon-282366.
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anon answered on 4 Mar 2021:
There is a great study that looked at decision making and brain activity. They found that the brain makes a decision on a choice about 10 seconds before we think we made that choice. It calls into question free will – are we really free to make choices? And what does this mean about consciousness?
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Christina Brown answered on 4 Mar 2021:
I really love studies on how the brain develops. One of my favourite new(ish) studies showed that there are brain cells in juvenile song birds that are required for vocal learning (learning songs) and if these brain cells are not active during that time, the song bird can’t learn specific bird songs in adulthood.
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Lisa Orchard answered on 4 Mar 2021:
I really love the online disinhibition effect, made famous by John Suler. The disinhibition effect looks at how and why we may act differently online (for instance, why people may be more likely to be aggressive or troll, or, at the opposite end, why people may be even more altruistic). The theory looks at lots of different factors, such as anonymity (hidden identity), invisibility (the lack of social cues), and asynchronicity (the time delay when responding online). The theory is a little dated, and has had lots of challenges, but it really helped me to understand why Internet interaction may be different to online interactions.
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Simon Payne answered on 5 Mar 2021:
Hi Harry. I really like the Self-Determination Theory (SDT). Made up of a nice combination of sub-theories, SDT provides a framework that helps us understand those “factors that promote human motivation and flourishing.” If you are interested in intrinsic and extrinsic influences on motivated behaviour, controlled vs autonomous motivation, or ‘basic psychological needs,’ for example, as well as how to help others sustain desired behaviours, I’d recommend having a look at: https://selfdeterminationtheory.org/ – the theory is described and lots of related research is collated here.
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Alex Baxendale answered on 5 Mar 2021:
My favorite study has nothing to do with my area of Psychology, but it’s really silly but has a very important message!
Some scientists bought a dead salmon from a shop and put it in an MRI machine to scan its brain, then they showed it pictures of different people making facial expressions to see what would happen. What they then did was look at their data but purposefully missed out a small (and commonly missed) step that is important, which showed that the salmon had brain activity when looking at faces!
The purpose of the study was to show everyone that by missing a really simple step when we look at our results we can end up creating fake results that are not there – just a mess up with the numbers! It’s a useful way to remind myself that every step that I take in my experiments is important, and I should not rush anything because it can create much bigger problems! -
Dennis Relojo-Howell answered on 5 Mar 2021: last edited 5 Mar 2021 2:11 pm
There’s an elegant study done in 1988 entitled ‘The Mathematics of Street Vendors’ which involved poor Brazilian children who didn’t go to school; they’re street vendors. Of couse, one would expect these children to do poorly on maths problems compared to those children who go to school. But researchers found out that when you contextualise maths problems, those children who didn’t go to school can do just as well, or sometimes better. I love this research because its at the core of my mission – if you provide vulnerable adolescents the opportunity to thrive and flourish, they will.
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Harry Piper answered on 5 Mar 2021:
I’m not sure I have a favorite for a good reason! I remember last year there were a few studies that were labelled the 4 horsemen of the apocalypse because everyone was confused how they ever got published! So they are my favorite, but maybe for the wrong reasons! I think they have all been removed now!
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Ellen Smith answered on 5 Mar 2021:
I’m not sure that I have a particular study that’s my favourite. At the moment, when I’m writing up my thesis, I’m doing a lot of reading about how what you eat can effect the composition of your gut bacteria, which can then impact on your health and brain function. I’ve found this really interesting, particularly there’s quite a bit of research that looks how whether you were breastfed (or not) and if you received antibiotics as a baby can change your gut composition and can lead to development of childhood obesity and asthma.
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Anon answered on 6 Mar 2021: last edited 6 Mar 2021 5:14 pm
Selective attention experiments are good fun. I won’t spoil it by explaining how it works – look up ‘Daniel Simons selective attention test’ on Youtube and you can give it a try!
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