The first Presidential Debate starts TONIGHT but can you tell anything about politicians’ accuracy by analyzing how they speak? A new analysis finds that lying politicians tend to be more verbose. For more on politics and deception, take a look at these past blog posts: Politics and Deception (Part 1) Politics and Deception (Part 2) Politics…
Read MoreIdentifying Emotion in Emails
“OMG I just LOVE pizza.” Is this statement sarcastic? Is it heartfelt? As our everyday communication is increasingly text-driven, inferring emotion from messages is an important skill. If the receiver of the message is a friend, they should be able to understand the sender’s emotion better than a complete stranger. But a recent study by…
Read MoreFair or Unfair? Facial Cues Influence How Social Exclusion is Judged
People are often excluded from social groups. As researchers from the University of Basel in Switzerland report in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, whether uninvolved observers find this acceptable or not may depend on the facial appearances of those excluded. The exclusion of cold and incompetent looking people is more likely to be accepted.…
Read MoreBlind Athletes Provide Clues About the Nature of Emotions
By Melanie Tannenbaum for Scientific American One of the most important ways that we learn how to interact with the world around us is through observational learning. By watching how our friends and family members behave, we learn at a very young age how to do things like turn on a lightbulb, open a door,…
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