Alix Spiegel

Big Sibling's Big Influence: Some Behaviors Run In The Family

Alix Spiegel — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 20:07:00 +0000

Patricia East is a developmental psychologist who began her career working at an OB-GYN clinic in California.

Bloston Blasts Reminds Us Of Fragility Of Life

Alix Spiegel — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 08:44:00 +0000

From the first explosion in Boston on Monday to the second, just 15 seconds elapsed. And in those 15 seconds, three people were mortally wounded, including an 8-year-old boy.

Would Angry Teens Chill Out If They Saw More Happy Faces?

Alix Spiegel — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 21:21:00 +0000

All day long we're surrounded by faces. We see them on the subway sitting two by two, pass them on the sidewalk as we make our way to work, then nod to them in the elevator.

But most of those faces don't tell us much about the emotional life of the person behind the face.

"People don't just go around the world smiling or grimacing or frowning," says psychologist Marcus Munafo of the University of Bristol.

Mining Books To Map Emotions Through A Century

Alix Spiegel — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 19:41:00 +0000

Were people happier in the 1950s than they are today? Or were they more frustrated, repressed and sad?

To find out, you'd have to compare the emotions of one generation to another.

New Voices For The Voiceless: Synthetic Speech Gets An Upgrade

Alix Spiegel — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 08:41:00 +0000

Ever since she was a small child, Samantha Grimaldo has had to carry her voice with her.

Grimaldo was born with a rare disorder, Perisylvian syndrome, which means that though she's physically capable in many ways, she's never been able to speak. Instead, she's used a device to speak. She types in what she wants to say, and the device says those words out loud.

To Spot Kids Who Will Overcome Poverty, Look At Babies

Alix Spiegel — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 21:32:00 +0000

Why do some children who grow up in poverty do well, while others struggle?

To understand more about this, a group of psychologists recently did a study.

It began in a small spare room where a series of very poor mothers and their 5-month-old babies came to watch a soothing video. Soothing the baby was the point, says Elisabeth Conradt, a postdoctoral researcher at Brown University's Brown Center for the Study of Children at Risk.

Why Even Radiologists Can Miss A Gorilla Hiding In Plain Sight

Alix Spiegel — Mon, 11 Feb 2013 08:33:00 +0000

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJG698U2Mvo

Mercy For Robots? Experiment Tests How Humans Relate To Machines

Alix Spiegel — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 08:25:00 +0000

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Kf9coMuVuI

Shootings Leave Sandy Hook Survivors Rethinking The Odds

Alix Spiegel — Fri, 28 Dec 2012 04:02:00 +0000

About a month ago, Declan Procaccini's 10-year-old son woke him early in the morning in a fright.

"He came into my bedroom and said, 'Dad, I had a horrible, horrible dream!' " Procaccini says. "He was really shaken up.

Charming, Cold: Does Presidential Personality Matter?

Alix Spiegel — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 21:46:00 +0000

As part of NPR's coverage of this year's presidential election, All Things Considered asked three science reporters to weigh in on the race. The result is a three-part series on the science of leadership. In Part 2, Jon Hamilton examined leadership in the animal kingdom.

Charming or cold. Flexible or rigid. Paranoid or impulsive or calculating.

How important is the personality of a president?

How Politicians Get Away With Dodging The Question

Alix Spiegel — Wed, 03 Oct 2012 07:33:00 +0000

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPOkpOipBYM

Teachers' Expectations Can Influence How Students Perform

Alix Spiegel — Mon, 17 Sep 2012 07:36:00 +0000

In my Morning Edition story today, I look at expectations — specifically, how teacher expectations can affect the performance of the children they teach.

The first psychologist to systematically study this was a Harvard professor named Robert Rosenthal, who in 1964 did a