Simon says -- you're a Democrat?

Published: September 9, 2007, 3:05 pm

That's a bumper sticker summary of an interesting paper appearing in the latest issue of Nature Neuroscience. Basically, scientists had 43 people play a computer game very much like Simon Says. In this case, a letter was flashed on the screen very quickly and the "player" had to decide instantly whether or not to push a button in response. If the letter was an M (as it was 80% of the time) push the button. if the letter was a W, don't push the button. Two results: People who described themselves as liberal were better at the game -- better at properly detecting and responding to the "no button" signal -- than self-described conservatives. And the scientists (two from NYU, two from UCLA) were able to identify a particular part of the brain that fired up more for the self-described liberals. Indicating there's something fundamental about brain architecture that connects politics and the ability to play this game. More about what this all means after the jump. The paper has

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