Psychologists create 'listicle' of unlikely study authors

Long before he became famous for landing a plane on the Hudson River, Chesley Sullenberger III published a scientific paper on humor and vision. Image shows a detail from the new movie "Sully."

Benedict Carey writes in The New York Times about how Emory psychologist Scott Lilienfeld and a colleague created a "listicle" of psychology studies by unlikely authors. Below is an excerpt:

"The study was almost laughably arcane: Air Force cadets’ pupils tended to dilate more when they read cartoons they thought were funny than for ones they didn’t think were funny.

"But the real punch line of this 1978 experiment — 'Pupillary size as an indicator of preference in humor,' published in the journal Perceptual and Motor Skills — is what became of one of the authors, listed as Sullenberger, C. B.

"Chesley B. Sullenberger III is the retired airline captain who safely landed US Airways Flight 1549 in the Hudson River in 2009 and the hero of the new Clint Eastwood-directed movie 'Sully.' By virtue of publishing his small experiment, he is also a member of an unusual club. Call it the you’ll-never-guess-who-wrote-that collection of authors of psychology studies."

Read the whole article in The New York Times.