Plus: Average CEO Pay Rises and Gifts for Dads this Father’s Day.

Average CEO Pay Rises
Average CEO pay fell in 2008 and 2009, ending 2009 at just over $10 million. This year, median CEO compensation rose 35 percent, according to a preliminary survey from GovernanceMetrics International (GMI). Average CEO pay rose 18 percent, suggesting that the raises were widespread rather than limited to a few fortunate chief executives.

Recovering industries meant higher equity profits for many executives. The number and size of cash bonuses also increased as more companies in rebounding industries were able to hit pre-determined financial performance metrics.

“In 2010, even the most modest economic rebound has resulted in a boon for CEO pay,” Greg Ruel, GMI research associate and co-author of the report, said in a statement.

In a separate CEO salary report, the Wall Street Journal, based on a Hay Group survey, also found that chief executives at the biggest U.S. companies saw their pay jump sharply in 2010, “as boards rewarded them for strong profit and share-price growth with bigger bonuses and stock grants.”

“Coming into 2011, most expected to see much greater pressure on CEO pay levels,” Hay Group says. However, “despite the drumbeat of enhanced pressure on executive pay issues, strong company performance will still carry the day in driving pay levels.”

“Every year, there is predictable outrage at the sheer size of the numbers, especially relative to the average worker,” Harvard Business Review said of the Journal‘s latest annual findings. “This year was no exception, though the criticism had a particular post-crisis bent: Why are CEOs making an average $9.3 million, up 11 percent over 2009, when the economy is still largely in the tank?”

Coffee Can Cause Hallucinaooh Bing Crosby!
In the latest addition to the pile of research published on coffee, scientists have found that drinking five or more cups of the bitter brown elixir a day is enough to increase a person’s tendency to hallucinate.

The study, published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences, measured the effect of stress and caffeine on 92 people. The participants were grouped according to self-reported stress levels and caffeine consumption, Medical News Today explains. Those drinking five or more standard caffeinated drinks a day were classed as high caffeine users.

“The participants were then asked to listen to white noise and to report each time they heard Bing Crosby’s rendition of ‘White Christmas’ during the white noise,” an announcement of the findings says. The song was never played, and researchers measured the number of false reports.

Participants with high levels of stress or who consumed high levels of caffeine were more likely to hear the song.

‘There is a link between high levels of stress and psychosis, and caffeine was found to correlate with hallucination proneness,” according to Simon Crowe, a neuroscientist at La Trobe University in Australia and the study’s lead author. “‘The combination of caffeine and stress affect the likelihood of an individual experiencing a psychosis-like symptom.”

Gifts for Dads
This Sunday marks the 101st Father’s Day since it was first observed in Spokane, Wash. Although economic times remain tough for many, the National Retail Federation forecasts Americans will spend an average of $106.49 on dads, up from $94.32 last year and the most in the survey’s eight-year history.

Approximately $11.1 billion will be spent on Father’s Day this year. This breaks down to varied gifts for the 67.8 million American dads, with the most going to special dinners or outings ($2.1 billion), followed by gift cards ($1.4 billion), sporting goods ($653 million) and automotive accessories ($593 million). Traditional gifts like electronics ($1.3 billion), clothing ($1.4 billion), home improvement or gardening tools ($1.4 billion) and books or CDs ($598 million) will also remain popular.

As another sweet gift on their special day this weekend, let’s also consider for dads some cookies made by robots:

On behalf of IMT’s staff, happy Father’s Day! Cheers.