Mary Martin

Friends without friction

Companion chatbots may weaken our ability to navigate conflict and difference—unless we make key design choices, says a new report

While most people tend to be optimistic, those suffering from depression and anxiety have a bleak view of the future — and that in fact seems to be the chief cause of their problems, not their past traumas nor their view of the present. While traumas do have a lasting impact, most people actually emerge stronger afterward. Others continue... See more

This suggests that the linear relationship between plausibility and hippocampal activity observed in the Weiler et al. study may not hold for the entire spectrum of plausibility. Instead, extremely implausible events may be associated with decreased hippocampal activity (relative to less implausible events), as observed in the current study where... See more

When people suppressed their fearful thoughts, as opposed to vividly imagining them, they were markedly less anxious about those thoughts later. They also rated their fears as less vivid and remembered them less.