February 20, 2013
Fertility and intelligence research has indicated that in humans, fertility rate and intelligence tend to be inversely correlated, that is to say, the more intelligent, as measured by IQ tests, exhibit a lower total fertility rate than the less intelligent. Survival rates are also correlated with IQ, so the net effect on population intelligence is unclear.
It is theorized that if the inverse correlation of IQ with fertility rate is stronger than the correlation of survival rate, and if heritable factors involved in IQ are consistently expressed in populations with different fertility rates, and if this continued over a significant number of generations, it could lead to a decrease in population IQ scores. Other correlates of IQ include income and educational attainment, which are also inversely correlated with fertility rate, and are to some degree heritable.
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February 20, 2013
In economics, a bliss point is a quantity of consumption where any further increase would make the consumer less satisfied. It is a quantity of consumption which maximizes utility in the absence budget constraint.
In other words, it refers to the amount of consumption that would be chosen by a person so rich that money imposed no constraint on his or her decisions.
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February 20, 2013
Sensory-specific satiety [suh-tahy-i-tee] is a sensory hedonic phenomenon that refers to the declining satisfaction generated by the consumption of a certain type of food, and the consequent renewal in appetite resulting from the exposure to a new flavor or food. The phenomenon was first described in 1956 by French physiologist Jacques Le Magnen, and the term was coined in 1981 by food scientist Barbara J. Rolls and neuroscientist Edmund T. Rolls. Its concept illustrates the role of physical stimuli in generating appetite and, more specifically, explains the significance of taste in relation to hunger. Besides conditioned satiety and alimentary alliesthesia, it is one of the three major phenomena of satiation.
This process is most commonly illustrated by a standard buffet. People are more likely to eat a larger amount of food at a buffet because the variety of foods and flavors presented renews a sense of appetite in the individual. A study conducted by Rolls and van Duijvenvoorde in 1984 verified this process by simulating a buffet-style meal. They fed participants four meals that included sausages, bread and butter, chocolate desert, and bananas. They then fed the participants four courses of one of these foods. The results revealed a 44% increase in overall food consumption when exposed to the meals with a variety of foods.
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