(Press-News.org) Researchers explore the human tendency to look to the past to predict the future—even when people rationally know outcomes are completely random. A fair coin flip is the prototypically random-outcome event. Russell Roberts and colleagues asked 12,000 people to predict coin flip outcomes in a sequence of five fair coin tosses—some in person, some online. With such a large number of participants, they were able to analyze subsets of people who—by chance—made a series of successful or unsuccessful guesses without any deception or manipulation of the results. The authors then asked participants to rate their expectations of success at guessing the outcomes of future coin flips and also asked participants to bet on their own future success in guessing the outcomes of coin flips. The more successful guesses a participant made, on average, the higher they rated their chances of further success—and the more they were willing to bet on that success. The reverse pattern was also true: unlucky guesses led to more pessimistic predictions about future performance and this negative effect was stronger than the positive effect. Knowledge about probability did not eliminate the effect. According to the authors, humans have a tendency to use prior experience as a predictor of future performance, even if they know the outcome is random. In particular, pessimism about future outcomes following unlucky failure may be an under-appreciated psychological driver of human behavior.
END
The irresistibility of extrapolating from past performance
2025-08-26
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
Predicting nationality from beliefs and values
2025-08-26
Different countries have different cultures, and social scientists have developed theories about which values are most important in differentiating the world’s cultures. Abhishek Sheetal and colleagues used the power of machine learning to identify the crucial distinguishing characteristics of the world’s national cultures in a theory-blind manner. The authors trained a neural network to predict an individual’s country of origin from their attitudes, values, and beliefs, as measured by the World Values Survey, a global study that probes everything from religious beliefs ...
Mindset shift about catastrophes linked to decreased depression, inflammation
2025-08-26
Catastrophes, by definition, are devastating, but they can often be catalysts for lasting, positive change – and if people can adopt that perspective, they may see some real benefits, a Stanford-led study suggests.
In a randomized, controlled trial, a one-hour intervention was given to a group of adults designed to shift their mindset, or core beliefs and assumptions, about having lived through a catastrophe like the COVID-19 pandemic, with the goal of seeing growth opportunities in the experience.
Those who received the intervention showed lower levels of depression three months later compared to a control group. Blood tests also revealed lower ...
Astronomers make unexpected discovery of planet in formation around a young star
2025-08-26
An international team of astronomers, co-led by researchers at University of Galway, has made the unexpected discovery of a new planet.
Detected at an early stage of formation around a young analog of our own Sun, the planet is estimated to be about 5 million years-old and most likely a gas giant of similar size to Jupiter.
The study, which was led by Leiden University, University of Galway and University of Arizona, has been published in the international journal Astrophysical Journal Letters.
The ground-breaking discovery was made using ...
EBMT partners in a new consortium to decentralise CAR-T cell therapy and improve hospital workflow
2025-08-26
EBMT partners in a new consortium to decentralise CAR-T cell therapy and improve hospital workflow
Barcelona, Spain - 26th August 2025 - The newly launched EASYGEN (Easy workflow integration for gene therapy) consortium will develop a fully automated, hospital-based platform capable of manufacturing personalised cell therapies within a few days. Fresenius SE & Co. KGaA is leading this €8 million EU-backed effort to make CAR-T cell therapy faster, more affordable, and more accessible to patients across Europe.
EASYGEN has been selected under the ...
Primate thumbs and brains evolved hand-in-hand
2025-08-26
Longer thumbs mean bigger brains, scientists have found - revealing how human hands and minds evolved together.
Researchers studied 94 different primate species, including fossils and living animals, to understand how our ancestors developed their abilities. They found that species with relatively longer thumbs, which help with gripping small objects precisely, consistently had larger brains.
The research, published today (Tuesday, 26 August) in Communications Biology, provides the first direct evidence that manual dexterity and brain evolution are connected across the entire primate lineage, from lemurs to humans.
Humans and our extinct ...
Sneaky swirls: scientists confirm ‘hidden’ vortices could influence how soil and snow move
2025-08-26
Researchers have shown for the first time how hidden motions could control how granular materials such as soil and snow slip and slide, confirming a long-suspected hypothesis. The knowledge could help in understanding how landslides and avalanches work and even help the construction industry in the future.
Scientists have found sneaky swirls and loops of movement in materials such as soil and snow could influence how materials move. The knowledge could be invaluable in understanding how avalanches and landslides on Earth and Mars speed up or slow ...
Tropical volcanic eruptions push rainfall across the equator
2025-08-26
Volcanoes that blast gases high into the atmosphere not only change global temperatures but also influence flooding in unusual ways, Princeton researchers have found.
In an August 26 article in the journal Nature Geoscience, the researchers reported that major eruptions create distinct patterns of flooding depending on the location of the volcano and the dispersal of its plume. The patterns mostly divide along the line of the equator. When a volcano’s plume is generally contained in one hemisphere, flooding decreases in that hemisphere and ...
UCLA scientists map primate ovarian reserve development, offering key insights into women’s health
2025-08-26
UCLA scientists have developed the first comprehensive road map showing how the ovarian reserve forms in primates, providing crucial insights into women’s health that could revolutionize treatments for infertility and hormonal disorders such as polycystic ovary syndrome, or PCOS.
The research, detailed in Nature Communications, represents a six-year collaboration among scientists from UCLA, Harvard, UC San Francisco and the National Institutes of Health-funded Oregon National Primate Research Center.
The ovarian reserve — the lifetime supply of eggs that a woman ...
BU study finds type 2 diabetes blood factors drive breast cancer aggression
2025-08-26
EMBARGOED by Springer Nature until 10 a.m. GMT, Aug. 26, 2025
Contact: Maria Ober, mpober@bu.edu, 617-224-8963
(BOSTON) – People with type 2 obesity-driven diabetes tend to have more aggressive breast cancers, but no one knows exactly why. A new study by researchers at Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine and published in Springer Nature found that tiny particles in the blood, known as exosomes, which are altered by diabetes, can reprogram immune cells inside tumors making them weaker and allowing ...
AI chatbots inconsistent in answering questions about suicide
2025-08-26
Three widely used artificial intelligence chatbots generally do a good job responding to very-high-risk and very-low-risk questions about suicide, but they are inconsistent in answering questions about suicide that may pose intermediate risks, according to a new RAND study.
Examining ChatGPT by OpenAI, Claude by Anthropic, and Gemini by Google, researchers found that ChatGPT and Claude generated appropriate responses to very-low-risk suicide-related questions and avoided direct responses to very-high-risk suicide-related questions that might encourage self-harm. Responses from Gemini were more variable.
Very-high-risk ...