HOW YOU CAN BANISH BAD MEMORIES
A new brain scanning study shows that people can intentionally forget past experiences by changing how they think about the context of those memories. The findings have a range of potential applications centered on enhancing desired memories, such as developing new educational tools, or diminishing harmful memories, including treatments for PTSD, according to researchers from Dartmouth College and Princeton University. Since ancient times, memory theorists have known that we use context — the situation we’re in, including sights, sounds, smells, where we are, who we are with — to organise and retrieve our memories. But researchers wanted to know whether and how people can intentionally forget past experiences. They designed a functional magnetic resonance imaging experiment to specifically track thoughts related to memories’ contexts. They also used a new twist on a centuries-old psychological research technique of having subjects memorise and recall a list of unrelated words.
MANTRA TO EAT lESS: THINK YOU’RE A FOODIE
People who believe themselves to be food addicts eat less, claims a new study which found that the perception of being a foodie makes them concerned about their eating behaviour. Obesity is often attributed to an addiction to food and many people believe themselves to be food addicts. However, until now no studies have looked at whether believing oneself to be a food addict influences how much we eat. Researchers examined the impact of changing participants’ personal food addiction beliefs on eating behaviour. Those who were told they scored high in food addiction consumed fewer calories than those who were told they had a low or average score.
DEEP VOICE IN MEN lINKED TO DOMINANCE
Male voices are not deeply pitched to attract female mates but to dominate the competition with other males, finds a new study that analysed a wide variety of primates, including humans. “We wanted to determine if sexual selection had produced sex differences in humans and closely related species,” said David A Puts, associate professor of anthropology, Pennsylvania State University. The findings showed that a deep-pitched male voice was seen as dominant by other males but had a smaller impact on attracting females. Human male traits imply physical aggression and formidability and seem to provide competitive advantages in fighting or threatening other men more than they help attract women. “Masculine traits in humans are not the same as, say, in peacocks where the beautiful tail attracts a mate,” said Puts in the paper published in Proceedings.