Author: Science News Staff / Source: Science News
Similar to their hunter-gatherer counterparts, many children in Western societies prefer play that mimics the things that adults do, Bruce Bower reported in “When it’s playtime, many kids prefer reality over fantasy” (SN: 2/17/18, p. 22). But fantasy play may still be valuable.
Reader Pat Rapp wondered about the implications of an experiment that showed that children who engaged in pretend games displayed a greater ability to control their emotional responses to another person’s apparent pain compared with kids who participated in more practical games.
“Usually this type of result comes up in attempts to characterize autism, and it’s interpreted to mean the child’s empathy is ‘disabled,’ ” Rapp wrote. “That is, it’s taken as a ‘negative,’ opposite to the ‘positive’ interpretation in Bower’s article. Is the difference just a matter of perspective, or is something more substantive underpinning this ‘positive’ interpretation?” Rapp asked.
The children in the study still experienced strong emotions when observing another person in pain but found ways to keep their feelings from spiraling out of control, Bower says. “That’s not the same as experiencing little or no feeling upon seeing someone else in pain, as some people with autism do.”
A DNA analysis revealed that a pair of ancient Egyptian mummies known as the Two Brothers were actually half brothers — they shared the same mother but had different fathers, Bruce Bower reported in “DNA solves the mystery of how these mummies were related” (SN: 2/17/18, p. 15).
Twitter user @MichaelJPartyka joked about the ancient DNA test: “23BC and Me.”
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