We’re bad at knowing when we will fall – or when we’re upright
You probably overestimate just how far someone can push you before you reach your tipping point, new research suggests.
No, we’re not talking about your emotional tipping point. (more…)
Vision and Hearing Work Together in the Brain to Help Us Catch a Moving Target
COLUMBUS, Ohio — A new study has found that chasing down a moving object is not only a matter of sight or of sound, but of mind.
The study found that people who are blindfolded employ the same strategy to intercept a running ball carrier as people who can see, which suggests that multiple areas of the brain cooperate to accomplish the task.
Regardless of whether they could see or not, the study participants seemed to aim ahead of the ball carrier’s trajectory and then run to the spot where they expected him or her to be in the near future. Researchers call this a “constant target-heading angle” strategy, similar to strategies used by dogs catching Frisbees and baseball players catching fly balls. (more…)
COLUMBUS, Ohio — People tend to overestimate the steepness of slopes – and psychologists studying the phenomenon have made a discovery that refutes common ideas about how we perceive inclines in general.
For more than a decade, researchers thought that our judgment was biased by our fatigue or fear of falling, explained Dennis Shaffer, associate professor of psychology at Ohio State University’s Mansfield campus. We perceive climbing or descending hills as difficult or dangerous, so when we look at an incline, our view is clouded by the expected physical exertion or danger of traversing it. (more…)
