All posts tagged: shapes

How eye contact shapes the believability of computer-generated faces

How eye contact shapes the believability of computer-generated faces

Published by José Betancourt

The direction a computer-generated character looks can dictate whether their facial expressions seem like genuine emotional responses to human observers. Direct eye contact makes simulated smiles and angry glares look more authentic, while looking downwards makes a digital face expressing sadness seem more real. These findings were published recently in Cognition and Emotion. Digital characters frequently appear in online therapy programs, video games, customer service applications, and virtual companionship software. To succeed in these roles, virtual humans must build a sense of rapport with the users interacting with them. Doing so requires the digital characters to display emotional states that human users interpret as authentic. Because virtual figures do not possess actual feelings, they rely entirely on visual cues to simulate a genuine state of mind. Previous research has explored how physical features shape the way people interpret an emotional display. To determine if a smile is a true reflection of happiness, a person will often look for the crinkling of the skin around the eyes. Observers commonly interpret these eye wrinkles as a sign …

Discomfort with modern technology shapes Gen Z’s desire to live in the past

Discomfort with modern technology shapes Gen Z’s desire to live in the past

Published by Sam Flores

Some members of Gen Z are feeling so pessimistic about the future of the country and modern technology that they want to hop in a time machine. Subscribe to read this story ad-free Get unlimited access to ad-free articles and exclusive content. Nearly half (47%) of adults ages 18-29 said if they had the option, they’d choose to live in the past, according to a new NBC News Decision Desk Poll powered by SurveyMonkey. One-third said they’d pick a time period less than 50 years in the past, while another 14% said they’d choose more than 50 years in the past. Meanwhile, 38% of Gen Zers said they’d prefer to live in the present, 10% said they’d go less than 50 years in the future, and 5% chose more than 50 years in the future. The results were largely consistent across gender lines and partisan divides, though young Black adults were less likely to say they’d prefer to live in the past (33%) than young white adults (52%) or young Hispanic adults (47%). The broader …

Smarter men possess more masculine body shapes but report fewer casual sex partners

Smarter men possess more masculine body shapes but report fewer casual sex partners

Published by José Betancourt

A recent study published in Evolutionary Psychological Science suggests that intelligence in young men is positively linked to physical traits like grip strength and a masculine body shape. At the same time, the research provides evidence that higher intelligence tends to be associated with less promiscuous sexual behavior. These findings support the idea that cognitive ability and physical health may reflect an underlying general fitness factor, while also steering smarter men toward more monogamous relationship strategies. The new study was motivated by the idea of a general fitness factor in humans. In evolutionary biology, there is a concept suggesting that overall genetic quality is expressed through multiple physical and mental traits at the exact same time. This concurrent expression happens because certain genes can influence several seemingly unrelated physical characteristics or biological systems. This genetic phenomenon is known as pleiotropy. For example, a single gene might affect both a person’s immune system and their brain development simultaneously. Some evolutionary scientists suspect that an individual’s total load of genetic mutations affects their entire body. Every person …

Longitudinal study finds procrastination declines with age but still shapes major life outcomes over nearly two decades

Longitudinal study finds procrastination declines with age but still shapes major life outcomes over nearly two decades

Published by José Betancourt

An 18-year-long study published in Journal of Personality & Social Psychology finds that people tend to procrastinate less as they move through young adulthood. Research on procrastination has mostly focused on short-term behavior, largely in academic settings and over relatively brief periods. These studies have been useful for identifying what leads people to delay tasks and the immediate consequences for performance and well-being, but they don’t say much about whether procrastination changes across longer stretches of life, or whether it stays fairly constant as people grow older. It is unclear, then, whether procrastination should be understood primarily as a context-dependent behavior or as a more enduring individual difference. Lisa Bäulke and colleagues addressed this gap by examining procrastination across the transition from late adolescence into adulthood. They sought to determine whether procrastination shows both stability and change over time, and how it develops alongside broader personality traits. The study was also motivated by the possibility that major life transitions, particularly the shift from education to the workforce, may shape patterns of procrastination. By following individuals …

Who You Know Shapes What You Believe

Who You Know Shapes What You Believe

Published by Jenni Sidey

How does who you know shape what you believe? It’s a question I’ve spent years studying, starting early in graduate school. My research has found that the people we discuss important matters with (not casual acquaintances or social media contacts, but our real inner circle) have a strong influence on our beliefs. When everyone close to you shares the same political or religious views, those beliefs get reinforced and sustained. So, the more your inner circle agrees with you, the more certain you feel, even when a belief may be inaccurate. What’s striking is how little it takes to disrupt this effect. Having even one person with different views in your close network is linked to significantly less extreme beliefs. One person! That finding has stayed with me since we first published it, and it’s the core insight behind this tool. I explore this in more detail in my book and in my own research, and sometimes I’ll ask my classes to think about their own personal networks. However, I wanted to create something people …

Dopamine shapes how fast you move, study finds

Dopamine shapes how fast you move, study finds

Published by Jenni Sidey

A small burst of energy can change how a movement feels. It can make a reach quicker, a step lighter, or a motion more deliberate. Scientists have long sensed that this link between feeling and movement exists, but a new study from the University of Colorado Boulder offers clearer evidence of how the brain creates it. The research shows that the same brain signals tied to reward and learning also shape how fast and forcefully people move. At the center of that process is dopamine, a chemical often linked to pleasure and motivation. The findings suggest that even subtle changes in expectation and surprise can adjust movement in real time. Senior author Alaa Ahmed, a professor in the Paul M. Rady Department of Mechanical Engineering, described the idea through everyday experience. “Anecdotally, we just feel that this is true,” she said. “When you go to the airport to pick up your parents, you may run to greet them. But if you’re picking up a colleague, you’re probably just going to walk.” Experimental protocol. (CREDIT: Science …

Political ideology shapes views on acceptable civilian casualties in war

Political ideology shapes views on acceptable civilian casualties in war

Published by José Betancourt

Across different types of military conflicts, people who hold conservative political views are more willing to accept unintended civilian deaths than people with liberal views. This ideological divide remains consistent whether the war features real adversaries, strategic partners, or entirely fictional nations. The findings were recently published in the European Journal of Social Psychology. Public opinion plays a major role in how governments wage war and handle international conflicts. Tolerance for civilian casualties can influence diplomacy, military strategy, and humanitarian aid. Researchers wanted to understand what drives the deep political divisions often seen in public polling about wartime casualties. They questioned whether this divide was tied to specific real-world conflicts or if it reflected a deeper psychological difference between political groups. The research team was led by Julia Elad-Strenger, a researcher at Bar-Ilan University in Israel. She worked alongside Daniel Statman from the University of Haifa and Thomas Kessler from Friedrich Schiller University Jena in Germany. They designed a series of experimental surveys to isolate the moral dimensions of wartime decision-making. Specifically, they wanted to …

What you study in school shapes your voting choices in adulthood

What you study in school shapes your voting choices in adulthood

Published by Sam Flores

Across Europe, education has become one of the biggest dividing lines in politics, and educational qualifications are now one of the best predictors of vote choice in Britain. This is particularly the case for new parties that compete more on cultural issues, including Reform and the Greens, who attract voters from different ends of the educational spectrum. In the most recent UK general election in July 2024, 18% of voters with no formal qualifications voted for Reform – two and half times as many as among those with a degree. On the flip side, degree-holders were three times as likely to vote for the Green party than those without qualifications. Our study shows that the link between education and politics starts far earlier than degree level, however. We’ve found that what you study at school affects your political choices both in adolescence and adulthood. We looked at the political views of young people aged ten to 18, and then followed them into their 20s. Young people who were studying humanities subjects in school, namely history …

How Childhood Trauma Shapes Dissociative Identity Disorder

How Childhood Trauma Shapes Dissociative Identity Disorder

Published by Jenni Sidey

Dissociative identity disorder (DID) is a trauma-related condition marked by the presence of two or more distinct identity states and significant gaps in memory that cannot be explained by ordinary forgetfulness (Şar et al., 2017; Loewenstein & Brand, 2023; Kissa et al., 2025). These identity states, often called “parts,” may have different patterns of emotion, perception, memory, and behavior. For many individuals, these identity states developed in response to overwhelming, often hidden, early life trauma. Why Chronic Childhood Trauma Matters Research consistently shows very high rates of severe, repeated childhood abuse and neglect among individuals diagnosed with DID (Raison & Andrea, 2022; Tang, 2023; Şar et al., 2017). Compared with other psychiatric diagnoses, adults with DID report higher levels of emotional neglect, physical abuse, and sexual abuse, often beginning early in life. Chronic Trauma Is Not Single-Event Trauma Chronic trauma differs from a single frightening event. It can include prolonged exposure to: When young children, whose brains and sense of identity are in the early stages of formation, experience chronic trauma, the effects can be …

Finger length ratios offer clues to how the womb shapes sexual orientation

Finger length ratios offer clues to how the womb shapes sexual orientation

Published by José Betancourt

A recent analysis of over two hundred thousand people reveals that the relative lengths of a person’s index and ring fingers are linked to their sexual orientation. The research suggests that the hormones a fetus is exposed to in the womb shape both physical development and whom that person is attracted to later in life. These results were recently published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology. Before birth, developing fetuses are exposed to different levels of sex hormones. These hormones, such as testosterone and estrogen, play a central role in shaping physical differences in the body. They also help regulate how genes are expressed in the developing brain. Testing exactly how these early chemicals affect human development is difficult. It is not ethical to alter hormone levels in pregnant women to see what happens to their children. Instead, researchers look for physical traits that act as biological markers of the environment inside the womb. One widely studied marker is the ratio between the length of the index finger and the length of the ring finger. …