Most of us would just as soon not be afraid, but our natural fear response can have some unexpected benefits. This point is made salient by recent scientific efforts to program fear responses into artificial intelligence. While this might seem like an odd thing to do, programmers saw this as a helpful component to teaching…
Read MoreCatching Emotional Contagion
It is well known that emotions can spread to other people of the group (called emotional contagion), but what is the role of emotional recognition in this process? There is certainly a long history of research and casual observations as to how other people’s emotions can impact our own, but the exact causal mechanism is…
Read MoreAlcohol and Emotion Recognition
We all know that alcohol has profound neurological impacts, but what is its role in emotion recognition? According to a new study by Dr. Lauren Hoffman and a team of researchers, alcohol use can significantly impair our abilities to recognize crucial emotions in other people, especially anger. Dr. Hoffman found that recovering alcoholics, while generally…
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