【推荐1】The streets of London are infamously colorful, and even more so now that some local authorities have decided to dress up pedestrian crossings in colors or other equally bright designs. Some of these “colorful crossings” are created by councils around the UK with more than just aesthetics (美学) in mind, focusing instead on preventing pedestrian casualties (伤亡人员).

Two cities in England that have just finished a pilot experiment are Liverpool and Hull. Before the experiment, the former had 99 adult pedestrian deaths or serious injuries per 100,000 people in 2019, making it the worst place in the UK that year, while in Hull 44 pedestrian casualties per 100,000 people were recorded.

“We call these colorful crossings a push because in an urban environment, pedestrians have a choice about where they cross the road,” says Dr. Holly Hope Smith, the consultant working on the two trials. “We’re trying to enhance a crossing that’s already there so that people are more likely to use it”

While Dr. Holy Hope Smith said that there had been little in terms of international research into colorful crossings, in 2004, research from Australian academics concluded that colored surfaces of crossings had a positive effect on pedestrian safety with regard to the number of crashes and the severity of injuries suffered by pedestrians. They recommended that they be applied in “busy” and “complex” pedestrian environments. More recently, a 2017 report by Better Bankside about artwork employed at crossings in London’s Southwark Street said, “Our work did make respondents use the crossing more, and 68% told us that the artwork made them experience more pleasure.”

Yet, bright colors aren’t for everyone. People suffering from autism (自闭症) have raised concerns over the nature of having several colors on a road, while guide dog owners have reported their assistance dogs being confused by the new road designs. “Colorful crossings can be really misleading for people with low vision and their guide dogs,” says Dr. Amy Kavanagh, a blind activist and campaigner. But Hope Smith doesn’t agree. “These crossings are placed to enhance existing pedestrian crossings. All the signals that are there for visually disadvantaged road users remain — the touch sensors, the audio signal for when the crossing is on — we haven’t touched them,” he says.

【推荐2】There are many languages that can benefit us in many ways, from culture to trade Chinese, Russian, Arabic, French and Spanish to name but a few. Instead of teaching them directly, a better way to ensure your child can pick up all these languages is through music.

Researchers have found music training plays a key role in the development of a foreign language in its grammar, colloquialisms (口语) and vocabulary. One recent study found that when children aged nine and under were taught music for just one hour a week, they exhibited a higher ability to learn both the grammar and the pronunciation of foreign languages, compared to their classmates who had learned a different extra-curricular (课外的) activity.

Finnish children are commonly musically trained from a young age using a playful method, but they only start school at age seven and start language learning at nine or older. Despite this “late start’’ to everything apart from music skills, they commonly end up speaking three to five foreign languages. Any English-speaking person who visits Finland will find that nearly every Finnish person speaks English without any problems.

Take Ken String fellow, the American singer-songwriter, as an example of the effect of music on the ability to learn foreign languages. Many years ago, well into his thirties, he married a Frenchwoman and consequently picked up a whole new language from the beginning. People recording with him in Paris were often amazed at how he had learned it so well without any previous background, but the research explains it. As a musician who made music from childhood, he would have developed his brain’s ability for learning the grammar, semantics (语义) and pronunciation of any new language in adulthood.

【推荐1】Ways to protect yourself online

People often feel a sense of unknown and separation while on their computer. However, the online world exposes individuals to a wide range of possible dangers. Yet, by taking a few measures, being on the internet need not become a potential danger.

Security

Whether you get online to visit with loved ones, surf the web or complete financial transactions (业务), your computer must be secure.     1     . However, for added protection, you must install software that prevents viruses from infecting your device. Otherwise, hackers may be able to also obtain your passwords and get into your online accounts.

Password Wisdom

The more complicated the password, the harder you make it for hackers to decode. Recommended passwords often contain upper and lower case letters along with numbers and symbols.     2     . IT techs also advise that you change your password every month or so to heighten the security.

    3    

If shopping online or making other financial transactions, make sure the website has safety features. Safe websites typically have an “https” address and a closed padlock somewhere on the page. Still, make sure the page is safe by clicking on the padlock. There should be a security certificate displayed. Check the “issued to” pop-up window (弹窗) to ensure that the issuance (发布) matches the page.     4     .

Download Dangers

When you download a file, game or program, you are at risk for additionally getting viruses or unwanted software.     5     . These programs may then gain access to files on your computer or follow your keystrokes (按键) to sites and gain access by learning your passwords.

【推荐2】Research spanning several decades demonstrates that you are more likely to think the information that is repeated to be true than the information you hear only once. You usually assume that if people put in effort to repeat a statement, this reflects the truth of the statement. This tendency-also called the truth effect-is a bias (偏见) that can lead you to draw incorrect conclusions.

To what degree are people aware of the truth effect? This question was addressed in a paper in the journal Cognition early this year.

In the critical study in this paper, participants did two sessions. In one session, they read about a hypothetical (虚构的) study in which they were exposed to some statements and then were asked whether both statements they had heard before as well as these new statements were true. They were asked to predict the proportion (比例) of each statement that would be judged as true. They did this both as a prediction of other people’s performance as well as a prediction of how they would do in this study.

At another session a few days later, participants actually performed this study, reading a set of 20 statements in the hypothetical study again and then judging the truth of altogether 40 statements, half of which were from the hypothetical study and the other half of which were new.

This study did replicate the well known truth effect. People were more likely to judge statements they had seen before as true than statements that were new. Two interesting findings emerged from the prediction. First, participants tended to underestimate the size of the truth effect for everyone. T hat is, while they did expect some difference in judgments between the statements seen before and those that were new, they thought this difference would be smaller than it actually was. Second, participants more significantly underpredicted the truth effect for themselves compared to that for other people.   

This study is particularly important in light of the amount of misinformation present in social media. Many people have the power to influence public opinion about important matters. Flooding social media feeds with misinformation will lead people to believe this information is true just because it is stated. Recognizing that we are all susceptible to this influence of repeated information should lead us to mistrust our intuition (直觉) about what is true and to look up important information prior to using it to make important judgments and decisions.