Editor's Selections: Video Games, Reality TV, and Fantasizing

Here are my Research Blogging Editor's Selections for this week.

  • You're running down a corridor in a castle that's under attack by terrorists. Or are their neuroscientists, trying to figure out just how it is that people get involved in the narrative "flow" of a video game? Neuroskeptic explains how your brain gets in on the game.
  • Reality TV might be good for more than just entertainment. Is it possible that reality TV could actually engender romance among the participants, even on shows (like American Idol) that aren't about romance itself (like The Bachelor)? At the new PsySociety blog, Melanie calls on social psychology to explain this phenomenon. Is Reality TV a soulmate machine?
  • Another new psychology blog has a post about TV as well, this week. Over at Psych Your Mind, Amie asks if the extent to which we daydream about our favorite TV, book, or movie characters can be captured by a psychological measure, and if so, what that means. Are you a fantasizer?

That's it for this week... Check back next week for more great psychology and neuroscience blogging!

More like this

Thank you for "choosing" to read Encephalon #44 here at Cognitive Daily. Every two weeks, Encephalon "selects" the best psychology and neuroscience blog posts from around the blogosphere, giving readers the chance to "decide" which ones they'd like to investigate further. Unfortunately for all…
Over at SEEDMAGAZINE.COM, my column discusses the recent flurry of blog posts and media reporting on the placebo effect. Here's a snippet: This is the primary misconception about placebos: that the placebo itself is somehow "working" to treat a medical condition. You can see it even in the headline…
Cognitive Daily has been chosen to respond to the first question in a newly revised feature on ScienceBlogs: Ask a ScienceBlogger. Readers can submit questions, and they'll be answered by an expert in the field of inquiry (even though it's posted under Dave's name, Dave and Greta worked together on…
Welcome to the 54th edition of Encephalon, the neuroscience and psychology blog carnival. This edition has everything from the perception of colour and shapes to behavioural economics, the neuroscience of sports and squabbling psychologists. First up is the editor's choice: an in-depth review of…