Psychology, Mind & Neuroscience Roundup

Around the blogs and in the news:

• Dr. Laura Freberg has a post on pro-ana (anorexia) websites.  While some sites explicitly offer tips to anorectics on how to curb hunger and lose more weight, others insist they are providing educational support for recovery -- even if people actually misuse the information those sites provide.  Dr. F notes that "proactive educational programs about eating disorders actually seem to increase" eating disorders.

• Marc Hauser (Harvard Cognitive Evolution Lab) proposes four distinguishing features of human thinking: "[1] the ability to combine and recombine different types of information and knowledge in order to gain new understanding; [2] to apply the same "rule" or solution to one problem to a different and new situation; [3] to create and easily understand symbolic representations of computation and sensory input; and [4] to detach modes of thought from raw sensory and perceptual input.  Read More...

• Omni Brain complains that CNN foolishly devoted coverage to Naomi Tickle who says "in a lovely British accent" that personality can be read 100% accurately based upon facial features.  Close set eyes indicate a person who is "very good with details."  You know, it's been proved 100% accurate, says Ms. Tickle.  If I'd only known, I wouldn't have wasted all those years studying the tedious details of tests and measurements...

• Jeremy Dean on questioning the effectiveness of SSRIs.  Grohol, Mind Hacks and Philip Dawdy also comment.

• Jonah Lehrer wonders if Adderall messes up the grading curve to the detriment of clean students?