Scientific American Mind 2020 01-02.pdf

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JANUARY /FEBRUARY 2020 | MIND.SCIENTIFICAMERICAN.COM
PLUS
HOW LYING
DRAINS YOU
The Secret to
Lasting Love
This cognitive ability enables couples to
resolve their differences more quickly
A NEW WAY OF
THINKING ABOUT
DEPRESSION
AND ANXIETY
DOES EMPATHY
INCREASE
POLITICAL
POLARIZATION?
WITH COVERAGE FROM
FROM
THE
EDITOR
Your Opinion Matters!
Help shape the future
of this digital magazine.
Let us know what you
think of the stories within
these pages by emailing us:
editors@sciam.com.
In Love and Play
In 2014 mathematician Hannah Fry gave a TED talk where she presented the following set of equations that predicts the posi-
tivity of interactions between spouses:
W
t+1
= w + r
W
W
t
+ I
HW
(H
t
)
H
t+1
= h + r
H
H
t
+ I
WH
(W
t
)
Though they look complex, the two equations predict how each spouse will respond to the other depending on their respec-
tive moods and influence over each other. The reasoning goes that more positive interactions will lead to a more positive mar-
riage. Couples everywhere seemed to have a simple prescription: be more positive than negative, and you’ll have a better chance
at success. Now a recent finding adds a neuroscientific element to the balance. As David Z. Hambrick and Daisuke S. Katsuma-
ta write, individuals who score high in working memory have less enduring conflict in their romantic relationships (see “How
Research on Working Memory Can Improve Your Romantic Relationship”). This suggests that trying to resolve conflicts requires
you to pay closer attention to what your partner is saying. And don’t forget to stay positive as much as possible. And take out the
trash more often.
In perhaps more lighthearted news, neuroscientists Ryan P. Dalton and Francisco Luongo describe in this issue a fascinating
experiment in which rats were taught to play hide-and-seek while the researchers monitored their brain activity (see “Play May
Be a Deeper Part of Human Nature Than We Thought”). Specific neurons in the prefrontal cortex associated with reward lit up
during the game, suggesting that the brain’s response to play is evolutionarily ancient. We are hardwired for fun, it seems. And
that is a positive thought.
Andrea Gawrylewski
Senior Editor, Collections
editors@sciam.com
LIZ TORMES
On the Cover
This cognitive ability
enables couples to
resolve their differences
more quickly
RYAN KING
GETTY IMAGES
2
WHAT’S
INSIDE
NEWS
January-
February
2020
Volume 31
•
Number 1
OPINION
4.
How Research on
Working Memory
Can Improve Your
Romantic Relationship
A cognitive factor helps
explain how well we
understand one another
6.
A Simple Test Predicts
What Kindergartners
Will Earn as Adults
Psychologists zero
in on the skills that
predict future success
7.
Scientists
Demonstrate Direct
Brain-to-Brain
Communication
in Humans
Work on an “Internet
of brains” takes
another step
10.
Western Individualism
Arose from
Incest Taboo
Researchers link a
Catholic Church ban
on cousins marrying in
the Middle Ages to the
emergence of a way
of life that made the
West an outlier
FEATURES
12.
Deep Sleep Gives Your
Brain a Deep Clean
Slow-wave activity
during dreamless
slumber helps wash
out neural detritus
15.
Failure Found to
Be an “Essential
Prerequisite”
for Success
Scientists use big data
to understand what
separates winners
from losers
17.
Play May Be a Deeper Part of Human Nature
Than We Thought
An animal study brings us closer to understanding
our own behavior
20.
How Dishonesty Drains You
Deceitful behavior diminishes our ability to read
emotions, with many consequences
23.
Cultivating Emotion Regulation and
Mental Health
Susanne Schweizer is a neuroscientist
investigating the development of emotional
regulatory processes and their role in mental
health across the life span
GETT Y IMAGES
26.
A New Way to Think
about Mental Illness
Instead of looking
for “the” cause
of schizophrenia,
depression and other
disorders, we should
consider whether there
might be a network
of causes
28.
Galileo’s Big Mistake
How the great
experimentalist created
the problem of
consciousness
31.
Can Empathic Concern
Actually Increase
Political Polarization?
Research suggests that
those who display the
most concern for others
are also the most
socially polarized
ILLUSIONS
BAPTISTE FERNANDEZ
GETT Y IMAGES
35.
A Pair of Crocs to
Match the Dress
Casting new light
on viral illusions
3
NEWS
How Research
on Working Memory
Can Improve
Your Romantic
Relationship
A cognitive factor helps explain how
well we understand one another
Disagreements are virtually inevitable
in a romantic relationship. More than
90 percent of couples argue, accord-
ing to a
survey
by the University of
Michigan’s Institute for Social Re-
search, with nearly half quarreling at
least once a month. Common topics
of marital disagreement are money,
sex and time spent together. None
of this will surprise anyone who has
been in a long-term relationship.
But a new study indicates that a
cognitive ability may help to explain
why some couples are more suc-
cessful in resolving their differences.
University of North Carolina at
Greensboro psychologist Levi Baker
and his colleagues report that
spouses who were high in working
GETT Y IMAGES
4
NEWS
memory capacity had better memory
for one another’s statements in
discussions about problems. In turn,
these couples showed greater
progress in resolving their problems
over time. The study suggests that
it’s not just dogged commitment that
gets couples through rough spots
but a cognitive factor that directly
affects the quality of partners’
communication with each other.
The sample included 101 couples
(93 heterosexual, seven lesbian and
one gay) who had been married for
less than three months. Working
individually, the newlyweds first
completed tests of working memory
capacity, which is the ability to hold
information in the focus of attention
over a short period, as when follow-
ing what someone is saying to you in
a conversation. In one of the tests
used by Baker and his colleagues,
called operation span, the test taker
sees an arithmetic problem on the
screen and attempts to solve it, after
which a letter appears. After some
number of these trials, the person is
prompted to recall the letters in the
order in which they were presented.
Next, the couples participated
jointly in problem-solving discussions.
Each spouse identified a problem
that could be resolved through
changes in their partner’s behavior.
The couples were then left alone to
discuss the problems, spending eight
minutes on each and rating the
severity of the problem before and
after discussing it. After each discus-
sion, the spouses went to separate
rooms and were recorded attempting
to recall each other’s statements.
Finally, after four and eight months,
the couples were e-mailed question-
naires that asked them to again rate
the severity of the problems.
Couples high in working memory
capacity showed the greatest decline
in problem severity at the follow-ups.
Furthermore, spouses high in work-
ing memory capacity were the most
accurate in recalling each other’s
statements from the discussions.
Linking these two findings, when
the researchers statistically con-
trolled for spouses’ memory for each
other’s statements, the relation
between working-memory capacity
and decline in problem severity
dropped significantly.
Baker and his colleagues tested
for the influence of other factors on
their results, including self-control,
tolerance for distress, and emotional
regulation. None of these factors
A new study
indicates that a
cognitive ability
may help to explain
why some couples
are more successful
in resolving their
differences.
explained the relation between work-
ing memory capacity and decline in
problem severity. While noting that
other cognitive factors such as
reasoning ability could also play a
role in marital dispute resolution, the
researchers suggested that a high
level of working memory capacity
contributed to decline in problem
severity by facilitating encoding of
the problem discussions into long-
term memory.
These findings suggest that one
way that romantic partners might
better resolve their disputes is simply
to pay better attention to each other
when discussing problems. You have
probably had the experience of being
introduced to a person and not being
able to remember their name sec-
onds later. You didn’t forget the
person’s name—you never committed
it to memory. That is, you didn’t pay
enough attention to it to transfer it
into your long-term memory. In the
same way, if you don’t attend to what
your partner is saying when discuss-
ing a problem, you will remember it
poorly, if at all. Making matters worse,
in the absence of an accurate
memory for the conversation, you
may remember what you think your
partner said rather than what he or
she actually said, leading to a false
memory. So listen carefully to your
loved one and save discussions
about relationship problems for times
when the two of you are most
attentive: when you are rested, sober
and undistracted.
Conflict will always be a part of
romantic relationships. Insights
gained from this new research
on the cognitive underpinnings of
dispute resolution, however, may
help partners resolve their differenc-
es more effectively and spend
more time on the things that make
a relationship worth having in the
first place.
—David Z. Hambrick and
Daisuke S. Katsumata
5

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