The anterior insula region deep inside the brain controls how quickly people make decisions about love, according to a new paper.

The finding, made in an examination of a 48-year-old man who suffered a stroke, is the first causal clinical evidence that the anterior insula "plays an instrumental role in love," according to Stephanie Cacioppo, Director of the Center for Cognitive and Social Neuroscience Laboratory of the University of Chicago, lead author of the study who also helped create an evolutionary theory of loneliness.

First impressions are so powerful that they can override what we are told about people, say social psychologists. A new paper presented today at the Society for Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP) annual conference in Austin says that even when told whether a person was gay or straight, participants generally identified the person's sexual orientation based on how they looked.

Everyone feels neuroscience studies are biased, no matter how representative they try to be. But Roel Willems and colleagues from the  Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour at Radboud University Nijmegen,  and Max Planck Institute in Nijmegen say studies are flawed if they don't include enough left-handed people.

Because left-handed people have different brains.

Do television shows and magazines make you feel guilty for not wearing sexy lingerie, ladies? You may just need some marketing empowerment from academics in the humanities.

Luckily, at Valentine's Day, the Internet will be filled with insipid advice based on weak observational studies and surveys. So here it is: sexy lingerie may not help, but it sure won't hurt. 

Can data be a tactile experience?

The CEEDs project thinks it can be, and they want to use integrated technologies to support human experience when trying to make sense of very large datasets.

Jonathan Freeman Professor of Psychology at Goldsmith University of London, did an interview with youris.com to outline  how they believe this project can help present data better, depending on the feedback participants provide to data from their environment via monitoring of explicit responses such as eye movement, and their inner reactions, like rate. 

What inspired you to get involved in data representation?

Looking for a good book? Then stay away from the award-winning section of the bookstore, because high standards means a greater chance for a letdown, according to Amanda Sharkey of the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, who finds that a book read after winning a prestigious award will likely be judged more negatively than if it's read prior to recognition.

Sharkey and colleague Balázs Kovács of the University of Lugano analyze thousands of reader reviews of 32 pairs of books. One book in each pair had won an award – like the Booker Prize, National Book Award or PEN/Faulkner Award – while the other book had been nominated but hadn't won.