The annual meeting in Long Beach is rapidly approaching. Unlike previous years, the meeting will feature a social-media angle—and everybody attending the meeting is welcome to contribute. We will be running a Twitter stream with a dedicated hashtag, #Psynom14. If you are new to social media and are unsure about how to get started, we have three […]
Our partners at FABBS (Federation of Associations in Behavioral & Brain Sciences) have brought to our attention this notice from the US National Institute on Aging. They are updating their strategic plan. If you are an aging researcher (and aren’t we all?), you may want to have some input into that plan. Here is your […]
Ask any chemist and she will tell you that an electron microscope needs to be carefully calibrated. If not, its measurements are not trustworthy enough for research purposes. As psychologists, our laboratories typically do not include electron microscopes, but we do employ various measurement devices. At the most basic level, this includes our statistical “machinery.” […]
It’s getting late and the party is noisy. Everybody around you is talking sat the same time and you have trouble keeping track of the conversation. And then someone at the other end of the room whispers your name. All of a sudden you can hear quite clearly: someone said your name, and all the […]
I meant to write this post last night but then something came up. I had some time set aside this morning, too, but email chewed that up. We all procrastinate, even if only occasionally. In actual fact, I didn’t procrastinate writing this post at all: I thought I was going to work on it tonight, […]
Statins reliably reduce cholesterol levels and help save lives by preventing or ameliorating cardiovascular disease. But they have side effects: About 1 in 10 people suffer nosebleeds, a sore throat, headaches, or muscle and joint pain, to name but a few of the common side effects. On balance, however, statins are widely believed to be saving lives. So […]
There is a brief flash on the screen—just 1/10th of a second. A few color patches are flashed, and 2 seconds later another array appears that stays on the screen until you respond. Your task is to decide whether any one of the patches of color in the second array differs from the colors briefly […]
Understanding the factors that have shaped the evolution of intelligence is a fundamental issue in animal cognition. The social intelligence hypothesis suggests that the physical environment does not present the kind of challenges that lead to the evolution of a flexible, intelligent mind, whereas the social environment does. The hypothesis suggests that social animals will be either […]
When riding on a bus or the subway these days, I tend to be surrounded by people who seem to exist in a different space. With vacant eyes, they look like they have successfully separated themselves from their perceptual environment. The secret weapon against outside intrusion of their own thoughts seems to be a set […]
Does “brain training” make you smarter, more alert, and (cognitively) younger all around? If you pay for brain training software, is that a smart investment? The people who sell this software presumably think so. But not everyone agrees. The websites of the Stanford Center on Longevity and the Max-Planck Institute for Human Development recently posted […]