Does education impact brain structure?

The most interesting articles that came to our attention this week

Dyadic secondary meta-analysis: Attractiveness in mixed-sex couples. Gregory Webster and colleagues examine whether men and women tend to match up with people who are similarly attractive. Re-analysing data from a previous meta-analysis, they find strong evidence that they do. People who rate themselves as more attractive are rated as more attractive by others, and tend to have partners who are more attractive.

Deep learning models reveal replicable, generalizable, and behaviorally relevant sex differences in human functional brain organization. Srikanth Ryali and colleagues use deep learning models to study sex differences in functional brain organization. Their models are able to differentiate male and female brains with over 90% accuracy. They also find that such sex differences are behaviourally relevant.

Twitter thread by Thomas Talhelm. Together with colleagues, Thomas Talhelm paid 8,000 people in 40 countries for a 5-minute data entry task that could not be completed in the allotted time. He reports substantial differences across countries in the fraction of people who worked past the allotted time in order to complete the task. People in WEIRD countries were much less likely to do so, suggesting they have a more contractual approach to work.

Fraction of people who worked past the alloted time in each country. (Participants were told they would not receive more money for working past the allotted time.