Pooja Sri

These Music Clips Are Supposed to Change the Way Your Coffee Tastes In 2004, Charles Spence, a professor of experimental psychology at Oxford University, published the first of many papers that marked him as the premier expert of the way sound and food work with our minds to create illusions of taste. He found, for example, that simply amping up the crispy sounds of a chip made otherwise-plain Pringles taste extraordinary. Rather blandly  titled  “The Role of Auditory Cues in Modulating the Perceived Crispness and Staleness of Potato Chips,” the paper was anything but, fundamentally changing not only the way potato chips are created and marketed but also creating a niche field that Spence has become the leading  expert  in: how corporations tease your mind to make food seem more appetizing. One of the least understood but most fascinating ways to do so is with sound. Dan Pashman, host of  The Sporkful  podcast, teamed up with Spence in a recent episode that explored sound, food,

Scientists Made a Huge Genetic Discovery About Schizophrenia This Week Schizophrenia is a devastating and often destructive mental disorder, one that overtakes a young mind and sends it spinning out of touch with reality. About one in 100 Americans is estimated to have schizophrenia, and although the word itself has been around for just over 100 years, the illness has likely haunted humanity for thousands. The disorder tends to run in families, so scientists have long suspected a genetic component — and yet years of research since the first human genome was sequenced yielded no firm evidence of its root cause. Until , that is, this week. In a landmark paper published Wednesday in the journal  Nature,  a team of the nation’s top scientists say they have pried open the “black box” of schizophrenia, pinpointing the genetic root of the disorder. “I’m a crusty, old, curmudgeonly skeptic," Steven Hyman, the director of the Stanley Center for Psychiatric Research at MIT’s Broad I

Ayurveda is an ancient science of body, mind, and spirit which has stood the test of time for over 5,000 years. It has eight branches. One of these branches is Ayurvedic psychology, also known as graha chikitsa or bhuta vidya. Ayurvedic psychology addresses mental imbalances and how to treat them with holistic methods so that patients may return to their inborn state of mental equilibrium. The mind is known as manas (phonetically mun-us) in Sanskrit. Ayurvedic doctors (vaidyas) or practitioners can determine a patient’s current psychological state (manas vikruti) through the eight-fold examination process (ashta vidya pariksha). This includes observing how the patient speaks, taking the pulse, looking at the person’s nails, tongue, etc. Manas vikruti is also felt through the second of the seven levels of pulse in Ayurvedic pulse diagnosis. Manas vikruti can be classified by the three doshas or Ayurvedic body types: Vata, Pitta, and Kapha. Vata psychology People with Vata imba

Sigmund Freud Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)  was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a movement that popularized the theory that unconscious motives control much behavior. He became interested in hypnotism and how it could be used to help the mentally ill. He later abandoned hypnotism in favor of free association and dream analysis in developing what is now known as "the talking cure." These became the core elements of psychoanalysis. Freud was especially interested in what was then called hysteria, and is now called conversion syndrome. Freud, his theories, and his treatment of his patients were controversial in 19th century Vienna, and remain hotly debated today. Freud's ideas are often discussed and analyzed as works of literature and general culture in addition to continuing debate around them as scientific and medical treatises. His life He was born Sigismund Schlomo Freud in Freiberg, Moravia, the Austrian Empire (now Pribor in the

What does it mean when you dream about someone? What does it mean when you dream about someone? Every now and then MY FRIENDS ask me that he is worried because he saw a friend or a relative dying in a dream. In addition to that lots of people keep asking me to  interpret their dreams for them  when they dream about someone they never expected to see in the dream. Why would a person dream about someone he rarely comes in contact with? Why would a person dream about a friend he didn't see lately? In this article psychologist M.FAROUK RADWAN have answered your questions and he tells you  what does it mean when you dream about someone . Symbols and dreaming about someone For some reason almost everything we see in our dreams are coded in the form of symbols. For example if you were  afraid  of losing your job then most likely you won't see yourself thinking about that in the dream but you might get the famous dream of missing an important exam. In my previous ar

Intuition is a person's capacity to obtain or have direct knowledge and/or immediate insight, without observation or reason. It's the "gut feeling" you get. People often place an enormous amount of faith on their intuition, even making decisions that seem to go against all available evidence. For example, a coach might play a second string player instead of a start player just because they had a "hunch" the second string player would do well. This would be a case of using intuition to make a decision. Instinct and Intuition, as I define it, is this: • Instinct is our innate inclination toward a particular behavior (as opposed to a learned response). • A gut feeling—or a hunch—is a sensation that appears quickly in consciousness (noticeable enough to be acted on if one chooses to) without us being fully aware of the underlying reasons for its occurrence. • Intuition is a process that gives us the ability to know something directly without anal

Factor g and General Intelligence Tests! General intelligence tests measure your general intellectual ability. Whether your thinking is logical? How do you solve the problems? How do you appreciate new material and benefit from the past experiences? A general intelligence test includes all these facets of your intelligence. But there is no definite definition of intelligence available so far… Every definition is given by a set of psychologists. But others take too much liberty to criticize the same. There is no unanimity and you may not expect the same in the near future. Is intelligence a common ability? Is it a set of different sets of abilities? Is it asset of your brain? Is it part of your abilities? Is it part of your behavior? Is it a trait or skill? All these questions are raised and answered by different psychologists in their own ways. However, it is generally agreed that intelligence is the name of a variety of intellectual procedures as memory, learning,

Daydreaming isn’t a waste of time, as we’re often told, but the gateway to creativity, problem-solving and even to the realisation of our potential. Judith Woods unveils what’s going on when we daydream. Daydreaming is one of the most common things we do, and also one of the most private – in a survey carried out at the University of Minnesota, 80 per cent of people said they would rather admit to an embarrassing experience than reveal their daydreams. But is daydreaming a waste of time, as we’re often told, or the doorway to creativity? According to psychologists, we spend up to half of our mental activity on daydreams. They help us realise our goals, and reveal our innermost hopes, desires and fears. ‘Paradoxical though it sounds, daydreaming is what makes us organised,’says Eric Klinger, professor of psychology at the University of Minnesota. ‘We think of daydreams as scatterbrained and unfocused, but one of the functions of daydreaming is to keep your life’s agenda i

Family is the longest surviving institution of India irrespective of the ages, transformations, religious and political views. Loyalty, integrity and unity are the three pillars upon which Indian families &  Indian Culture  stand. From family, Indians learn the first letters of collectivism and sacrificing individualism for collective interest. Extended family and kinship are two key aspect of Indian family system. In some parts of India, you will find patriarchal families while in southern India you can find mother-centric families and kinship.  Historically, family in India means joint family consisting of grandparents, parents and their offspring. They all leave in the same household, share the common income, eat the food that is cooked for all members and share the same religious values and faith. Though, joint family system is losing its importance with the growth of materialistic values, still you can find this system in most of the parts of rural India. In general, the

Contagious yawning isn’t a myth. It’s a real, scientifically demonstrable phenomenon. We yawn when we see someone else yawn. The sound of yawning makes us yawn. The yawning contagion can even spread between species. Studies show that chimpanzees start yawning when they watch videos of other primates yawning. Dogs exhibit contagious yawning, even in response to human yawns. You might be yawning right now, as you read this, and it’s probably not because you’re sleepy and certainly not because you’re bored (heaven forbid). So, why then? Why is yawning contagious?sssss In 2013, scientists in Zurich, Switzerland, had 11 healthy volunteers watch a set of videos while plugged into an fMRI, which tracks brain activity in real time. The videos displayed human faces yawning, laughing, or with neutral expressions. As the researchers expected, subjects yawned in response to the yawning videos more than half the time, which is the typical percentage. Also as they expected, the

The triangular theory of love explains the topic of love in an interpersonal relationship. Psychologist Robert Sternberg’s theory describes types of love based on three different scales  intimacy, passion, and commitment. It is important to recognize that a relationship based on a single element is less likely to survive than one based on two or more.  Different stages and types of love can be explained as different combinations of these three elements. For example, the relative emphasis of each component changes over time as an adult romantic relationship develops.  1. Liking in this case is not used in a trivial sense. Sternberg says that this intimate liking characterizes true friendships, in which a person feels a bondedness, a warmth, and a closeness with another but not intense passion or long-term commitment.   2. Infatuated love is often what is felt as "love at first sight." But without the intimacy and the commitment components of love, infatuated lo