Death Do Us Delay
In a study of nearly 600 heart-surgery patients, unmarried people were nearly twice as likely to die as married people within five years of the procedures. For married patients, the survival rate was roughly 85%; for the unmarried, 70%.
The three-year study looked at men and women who had coronary-bypass or valve surgery at a major medical center, starting in October 2000; the researchers controlled for such factors as pre-existing health risks, demographics and the richness of patients' social networks. Marriage helped males and females about equally, and the difference in mortality was starkest in the first months after surgery.
- See more from Christopher Shea at the Ideas Market blog
Much of the long-term difference could be explained by unmarried patients being more likely to smoke (a behavior that spouses can influence, naturally). For the short-term gap, researchers cited social, emotional and even "cognitive" support—smart decision-making—as possible explanations.
"Mending Broken Hearts: Marriage and Survival Following Cardiac Surgery," Ellen L. Idler, David A. Boulifard and Richard J. Contrada, Journal of Health and Social Behavior (March)
Typists Take Sides
The act of typing may shape how we feel about words, a study suggests. The Qwerty keyboard layout of 1868 separated certain keys struck often in succession, in order to prevent typewriter jams. But more letter keys are assigned to the left (the right has punctuation marks)—which, the researchers note, means that words made mostly of "right-hand" letters are easier to type.
Might that physical fluidity translate into more positive feelings toward "right-side advantage" words? When participants ranked more than 1,000 words, they rated right-side-advantage words more positively.
Another explanation for the subtle effect, the researchers said, might be right-handers' general preference for right-sided things. Left-handers showed a smaller (but still significant) Qwerty effect.
"The Qwerty Effect: How Typing Shapes the Meanings of Words," Kyle Jasmin and Daniel Casasanto, Psychonomic Bulletin & Review (forthcoming)
Hoops Under Pressure
In pro basketball, home-court advantage coexists with a phenomenon known as the "home choke," a study suggests. Researchers looked at free throws (for which play stops). In general, "home" players made a slightly higher percentage of such shots than "away" players. But with games on the line, the performance of home players slipped below that of away players, whose performance stayed the same. The authors suggest that the crowd's silence when home players are at the line could heighten physical self-consciousness.
"Effort vs. Concentration: The Asymmetrical Impact of Pressure on NBA Performance," Matt Goldman and Justin M. Rao, paper delivered at the M.I.T. Sloan Sports Analytics Conference (March)
Really Talking With Your Hands
The deaf and people who have lost their voices may someday have a new way to speak, thanks to the Digital Ventriloquist Actor, or DiVA.
Developed at the University of British Columbia, the speech-production system makes use of high-tech gloves equipped with sensors and tracked in three-dimensional space. The person operating it creates vowel sounds by opening the right hand (different gestures determine the pitch and tonality) and "soft" consonants like r's and z's by closing that hand. Hard consonants are partly created by tapping the left-hand fingers.
It takes about 100 hours of training to learn to speak intelligibly using DiVA, say its creators, who showed it off at the recent meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The technology has intrigued avant-garde musicians, who are drawn to its not-quite-human sound.