Under the Cortex

Playing With Fear: Haunted Houses and Recreation

Haunted houses, horror movies, and ghost stories can provoke chilling delights, provided the fear they evoke remains in a “Goldilocks zone” that is neither too terrifying nor too tame. New research connects this sweet spot of recreational fear to a telltale range of heartrate fluctuations, shedding light on the mind-body connection between fear and fun.

COVID-19: Psychological Impacts and Human Behavior

As the world rapidly approaches the one-year anniversary of the coronavirus pandemic, the human impacts continue to mount. Exploring what this means from the perspective of psychological science, Charles Blue with the APS interviews Robert Roy Britt, a journalist and former editor-in-chief of Live Science; Wendy Wood, Provost Professor of Psychology and Business at the University of Southern California; and, APS President Shinobu Kitayama, the Robert B. Zajonc Collegiate Professor of Psychology at the University of Michigan.   

Violent Video Games and Aggression: The Connection is Dubious, at Best

A new study published in the journal Perspectives on Psychological Science reanalyzed the data potentially linking video games to aggression in children and found little if any correlation between the two. Lead author Christopher Ferguson of Stetson University talks with APS's Charles Blue on the history and plausibility of connecting violent video games with aggressive outcomes in children.  

Days of Future Past: Concerns for the Group’s Future Prompt Longing for Its Past (and Ways to Reclaim It)

In a recent article in Current Directions in Psychological Science, Michael Wohl, a researcher at Carleton University, explores how collective angst can influence collective nostalgia. As the U.S. prepares for its next election, this research provides intriguing insights into how political rhetoric tends to capitalize on the relation between these emotions by promising to “bring back the good old days.” Listen to the APS podcast discussion with Michael on these findings and their potential impact on society and politics.

APS President’s Virtual Roundtable: The Opportunities and Challenges of Open Access

To expand our understanding of open access and how it applies to our members, APS President Shinobu Kitayama convened a virtual roundtable of international experts on scholarly publishing to discuss both the challenges and opportunities of this emerging model of journal publishing. 

Why Are There Differing Preferences for Suffixes and Prefixes Across Languages?

While speakers of English and other Western languages prefer using suffixes more than prefixes, a new study reveals that this preference is not as universal as once thought.  These findings stress the need for more diverse populations in language research and may shed light on human cognition

Current Directions in Psychological Science Podcast: Psychological mechanisms forged by cultural evolution

Robert Goldstone of the Percepts and Concepts Laboratory at Indiana University and editor of the APS Journal Current Directions in Psychological Science interviews Cecilia Heyes
Department of Experimental Psychology at University of Oxford, and Senior Research Fellow in Theoretical Life Sciences at All Soul’s College.

Current Directions in Psychological Science Podcast: Digital Emotion Regulation

Robert Goldstone of the Percepts and Concepts Laboratory at Indiana University and editor of the APS Journal Current Directions in Psychological Science interviews Greg Wadley, senior lecturer in the School of Computing and Information Systems at the University of Melbourne. 

Current Directions in Psychological Science Podcast: Social Structure Learning

Robert Goldstone of the Percepts and Concepts Laboratory at Indiana University and editor of the APS Journal Current Directions in Psychological Science interviews Sam Gershman, associate professor of psychology at Harvard University. 

Current Directions in Psychological Science Podcast: The Psychology of Intolerance: Unpacking Diverse Understandings of Intolerance

Robert Goldstone of the Percepts and Concepts Laboratory at Indiana University and editor of the APS Journal Current Directions in Psychological Science interviews Maykel Verkuyten, Professor of Interdisciplinary Social Science at the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands.