Our weekly round-up of the best psychology coverage from elsewhere on the web

A recent study has found that about two-thirds of conversations don’t end when we want them to. Researchers who monitored over 900 conversations found that most people wanted them to finish sooner, though a minority wanted them to continue for longer. This was true whether participants were talking to someone they had just met or a loved one, Adam Mastroianni tells Sean Illing at Vox.

Our weekly round-up of the best psychology coverage from elsewhere on the web

It’s wrong to say that introverts have fared better during the pandemic, writes Lis Ku at The Conversation. Instead, studies have shown that in many ways introverts’ wellbeing has suffered more than that of extraverts. This could be because extraverts may have more social support, for instance, or because extraversion is related to superior coping strategies — although Ku emphasises that there are likely many other traits, beliefs and values that are also important in determining people’s response to lockdown.

Our weekly round-up of the best psychology coverage from elsewhere on the web

You might have heard of the “Mozart effect”, the idea that playing babies classical music can boost their intelligence. But is there any truth to that claim? In a word, no — but check out this nice video from Claudia Hammond at BBC Reel to learn more about where the myth came from.

Our weekly round-up of the best psychology coverage from elsewhere on the web

Like humans, octopuses have both an active and quiet stage of sleep, reports Rodrigo Pérez Ortega at Science. Researchers found that for 30-40 minutes of sleep the creatures are fairly still with pale skin, but for about 40 seconds their skin turns darker and they move their eyes and body. In humans, dreaming happens in the active, REM stage, but scientists still don’t know whether the octopuses also dream during their active sleep.

Our weekly round-up of the best psychology coverage from elsewhere on the web

Researchers have used virtual reality to explore how art and nature elicit feelings of the sublime. The team compared people’s emotional responses when they saw a 360° VR version of Van Gogh’s The Starry Night to when they saw a realistic portrayal of the actual area depicted in the painting. They found that both VR videos induced sublime feelings — but participants’ responses were more intense for the naturalistic video, reports Sarah Wells at Inverse.