Behavior

Using wireless signals, RF-Pose could serve as a health care system to monitor patients' movements from the other side of a wall.

Artificial intelligence senses people through walls

Wireless smart-home system from the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory could monitor diseases and help the elderly “age in place.”

June 12, 2018

It’s often said that experience is the best teacher, but the experiences of other people may be even better.

Brain circuit helps us learn by watching others

Scientists pinpoint neural interactions that are necessary for observational learning.

May 3, 2018

David Anderson of Caltech is the winner of the 2018 Edward M. Scolnick Prize in Neuroscience.

McGovern Institute awards 2018 Scolnick Prize to David Anderson

Neuroscientist honored for his work on the biology of neural stem cells and neural circuits that control emotional behaviors.

May 3, 2018

Measuring the economy with location data

Startup’s platform crunches anonymized smartphone GPS data to understand how people shop, work, and live.

March 27, 2018

MIT graduate student Hilary Richardson helps a child into an MRI scanner for a study of how children's brains develop the ability to think about the mental states of other people.

Study finds early signatures of the social brain

Children as young as 3 have brain network devoted to interpreting thoughts of other people.

March 12, 2018

Teppei Yamamoto, the Alfred Henry and Jean Morrison Hayes Career Development Associate Professor of Political Science.

Political Methodology Lab to dig deep into new kinds of data

Founder Teppei Yamamoto designs new tools to comprehend political behavior transformed by digital technology.

February 15, 2018

Our daily lives include hundreds of routine habits, made up of many smaller actions, such as picking up our toothbrush, squeezing toothpaste onto it, and then lifting the brush to our mouth. This process of grouping behaviors together into a single routine is known as “chunking.” MIT neuroscientists have now found that certain neurons in the brain are responsible for marking the beginning and ...

Distinctive brain pattern helps habits form

Study identifies neurons that fire at the beginning and end of a behavior as it becomes a habit.

February 8, 2018

“I am fascinated by how people work, why we do what we do, and why we think what we think,” says senior and Marshall Scholar Liang Zhou.

Decoding human cognition

MIT senior and Marshall Scholar Liang Zhou wants to elucidate the neural basis for our thoughts and intuitions.

February 1, 2018

An illustration of real-world behavioral commonalities in raw data of transactions.

Inventing the “Google” for predictive analytics

Platform analyzes big data to answer plain-language business queries in minutes instead of months.

December 19, 2017

MIT neuroscientists have discovered that making decisions, especially when choosing between two options that have both positive and negative elements, can be dramatically affected by chronic stress.

Stress can lead to risky decisions

Neuroscientists find chronic stress skews decisions toward higher-risk options.

November 16, 2017

The non-profit Young 1ove designed a course for Botswana schools called “No Sugar” that teaches young girls the high likelihood of contracting HIV from older men called "sugar daddies." Classes begin with ice breakers, such as singing and dancing exercises (shown here). The remainder of the class teaches students risk factors of sugar daddies and how to seek help. The course has reached more t...

Course helps girls in Botswana avoid HIV and “sugar daddies”

Youth-to-youth program teaches girls about the increased odds of contracting HIV from older men.

October 25, 2017

When negotiating, pride goeth before destruction

Study finds good feelings from one negotiation can damage subsequent performance.

October 24, 2017

Researchers found that babies who watched an adult struggle to complete tasks before succeeding tried harder at their own difficult task, compared to babies who saw an adult succeed without effort.

Babies can learn that hard work pays off

Study finds infants try harder after seeing adults struggle to achieve a goal.

September 21, 2017

MIT researchers have found that languages tend to divide the "warm" part of the color spectrum into more color words than the "cooler" regions, which makes communication of warmer colors more consistent. From left to right, this chart shows the order of most to least efficiently communicated colors, in English, Spanish, and Tsimane' languages.

Analyzing the language of color

Cognitive scientists find that people can more easily communicate warmer colors than cool ones.

September 18, 2017

“The question we’re asking is: Do retractions trigger, at an individual level, something like an infection mechanism, where the retracted author is being punished and discredited for being dishonest or just incompetent?” says Alessandro Bonatti, an associate professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management.

How retractions hurt scientists’ credibility

Study finds faulty research creates a significant drop in use of prior published work.

September 5, 2017

MIT News | Massachusetts Institute of Technology

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