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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.

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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!

Jason G. Goldman is a science journalist based in Los Angeles. He has written about animal behavior, wildlife biology, conservation, and ecology for Scientific American, Los Angeles magazine, the Washington Post, the Guardian, the BBC, Conservation magazine, and elsewhere. He contributes to Scientific American's "60-Second Science" podcast, and is co-editor of Science Blogging: The Essential Guide (Yale University Press). He enjoys sharing his wildlife knowledge on television and on the radio, and often speaks to the public about wildlife and science communication.

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