Neuropsych

Like it or not, we are the descendants of busybodies.

Communication with home will be difficult on long-haul space flights. The longer this isolation goes on, the more detached a crew becomes.

Does the voice in your head castigate the voice coming out of a recording device?

A recent study illuminated surprising differences in how men and women seek help when struggling with relationships.

Our social instincts can lead us to adopt models of desire that might not serve our interests.

We seem to be wired to calculate not the shortest path but the “pointiest” one, facing us toward our destination as much as possible.

Our moral attitudes about sex and drugs share a genetic basis, suggests a recent study that examined the attitudes of more than 5,000 twins.

The ability to differentiate your emotions might make you less likely to suffer from depression, alcoholism, and anger issues.

Dedicated circuits evaluate uncertainty in the brain, preventing it from using unreliable information to make decisions.

We are more likely to agree with someone who also agrees with us. Young children, though, only trust themselves. We have to learn to trust.

A recent study casts doubt on the notion that watching porn, whether alone or with a partner, damages romantic relationships.

Great genius is not born of lightning bolt-like moments of inspiration. In reality, perseverance plays the biggest role.

Our minds are hyper-taxed due to hyper-tasking. We need to slow down and allow ourselves to daydream if we want to improve our attention.

Engaging in a brief mindfulness exercise made people who identified “I/me” words 33% less likely to volunteer.

Deep brain stimulation could represent a breakthrough in the treatment of mental health disorders like major depressive disorder.

The key is finding which lifestyle suits you best: hedonic, eudaimonic, or experiential.

To enable us to read, the brain piggybacks on other cognitive processes.

Why do people own so many unused possessions, treating them as though they are too special to use?

“Theory of mind” enables all people to naturally infer other people’s mental states. Psychopaths don’t seem to put much effort into the process.

A new study suggests that depressed people may prefer a Leonard Cohen or Bob Dylan song to one from The Beach Boys or One Direction.

For some people, the emotional pull of fictional characters is profoundly strong.

“I suddenly woke up one day and thought, you idiot, you are letting your life fade away, you have got to do something.”

A new study upends a long-standing theory on how the brain plans motor actions in uncertain environments.

When you unintentionally step on a dog’s tail, does it know that it was an accident?

In a way, the human brain is like three brains in one.

How the brain decides what to store and what to forget.

Our brains did not evolve to shop on Amazon.

A new study found that people who scored high in certain psychopathic traits are more likely to limit head movements.

Science confirms what you already knew about being helpful to others.

Money can buy happiness — if you spend it on others, research suggests.