Month: April 2010
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Reliable Lie Detection Cues
We mistakenly attribute fidgeting, stuttering and avoidance of eye contact as outward signals of mendacity, suggests recent research into lie detection, showing that these are some of the least accurate ways to predict whether or not someone is lying. Instead, the most reliable way to tell if someone is lying is by listening carefully: Professor…
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Paper Maps vs. GPS vs. Personal Directions
Noting that “a device can be precise without being accurate” and contemplating the possible effects the simultaneous rise in digital maps and a decline in the use of paper maps could have, John McKinney looks at some studies comparing the efficacy of different navigational aids: Studies by the British Cartographic Society show that high-tech maps…
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How Different Cultures Define Choice
In her book The Art of Choosing, psychologist Sheena Iyengar—the experimenter who conducted the original studies leading to the paradox of choice theory—looks at the cultural differences in the definition and acceptance of choice. Take a mundane question: Do you choose to brush your teeth in the morning? Or do you just do it? Can a habit…
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Information, Not Recommendation, the Best Advice
Attempting to discover the most effective way to offer advice, researchers identified four separate types of advice: Advice for is a recommendation to pick a particular option. Advice against is a recommendation to avoid a particular option. Information supplies a piece of information that the decision maker might not know about. Decision support suggests how…
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Choice Architecture of Organ Donation
The supply of organs suitable for donation is vastly smaller than the demand. To try and increase the pool of potential donors a number of options have been tested: Redefining death so ‘living’ organs can be taken from donors who have died through brain death (via Link Banana), provide incentives for potential donors, or employ…
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The Landscapes of Gadgets
Stating that modern gizmos (in this example, the iPhone) are no longer just dependent on highly integrated and developed systems for their production, but now also depend upon “a vast array of infrastructures, data ecologies, and device networks” for their operation, Rob Holmes’ “mind-boggling update to I, Pencil“* looks at the landscapes of extraction, assembly…
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Our Common Navigational Mistakes
Reading how some animals are able to “instinctively solve navigational problems” that baffle us humans, I was reminded of Tom Vanderbilt, author of Traffic, writing on the most common navigational mistakes we all make. In [a recent study] a number of subjects were asked to estimate the travel time for a northbound versus southbound bird. The majority of…
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Writing to Subvert Audience Expectations
Suggesting that “Audiences always think they know how a story will go”, Roz Morris of Nail Your Novel dissects Kathryn Bigelow‘s award-winning The Hurt Locker (spoilers galore) to see why a film that “[sets] up several conventional situations – and uses our expectations to pull us up short” made such an impact with audiences. Readers…
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Northern Ireland’s Segregated Peace
Twelve years after the signing of the Belfast ‘Good Friday’ Agreement signalled an end to the Troubles, Northern Ireland is in a state of ‘segregated peace’, says Kevin Cullen, describing the situation. Not only is there an official ethos of separate but equal, but an infrastructure underpinning it. There are three times as many so-called…