Past neuroscience and psychology studies have shown that people’s expectations of the world can influence their perceptions, either by directing their attention to expected stimuli or by reducing their sensitivity (i.e., perceptual acuity) to variations within the categories of stimuli we expect to be exposed to. While the effects of expectations on perceptions are now […]
Authors: Ralph Hertwig, Director, Center for Adaptive Rationality, Max Planck Institute for Human Development and Stephan Lewandowsky, Chair of Cognitive Psychology, University of Bristol The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 paved the way for the democratisation of many eastern European countries and triumphantly ushered in the era of global liberal democracy that some […]
A predictive tool for determining the age at which individuals may develop mild cognitive impairment (MCI) or Alzheimer’s dementia (AD) has demonstrated the ability to predict MCI onset within 2.78 years and AD onset within 1.48 years. Developed by Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health researchers, collaborating with the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) […]
Author: Rachel Gordon, Massachusetts Institute of Technology In 1994, Florida jewelry designer Diana Duyser discovered what she believed to be the Virgin Mary’s image in a grilled cheese sandwich, which she preserved and later auctioned for $28,000. But how much do we really understand about pareidolia, the phenomenon of seeing faces and patterns in objects […]
Memory is so much more than a storage unit in our minds. The people involved in memories influence what we recall, and, as our study shows, the connections we make between memories. Our memory helps us learn from experiences and develop new knowledge by integrating and updating information. This process goes beyond recalling individual events […]
One of the things I mostly hated in school was having to practise my calligraphy skills, I found it monotonous and uninspiring. However, despite not having served to improve my handwriting, it may have helped me fixate new information during my studies, as new research points towards handwriting being better than typing for learning and […]
Epistemology • Philosophy of science • Psychology • Sociology
“Censorship” is not a pleasant word to anyone. Its connotations are almost always negative and, in the first instance, an effort should be made to find circumstances that justify a restriction of information. Even more so in the scientific field, where empirical evidence should prevail over authority, tradition, rhetorical eloquence or social prestige. Science seeks […]
reading Author: Juan F. Trillo, PhD in Linguistics and Philosophy (U. Autónoma de Madrid), PhD in Literary Studies (U. Complutense de Madrid). Science often ends up confirming what we have always known —or at least suspected— through research whose results are in line with what intuition suggests. This is the case of reading in young […]
Health • Medicine • Physiology • Psychology
gender gap Sleep experts recommend that adults sleep 7-9 h per night (7-8 h for older adults). However, about 30-35% of adults sleep less than 7 h and prevalence rates of short or insufficient sleep are increasing. Insufficient sleep is not in itself a diagnosable disorder; however, its high prevalence highlights a key target for […]
Social networks Author: Martha R. Villabona works at Subdirección General de Cooperación Territorial e Innovación Educativa of the Spanish Ministry of Education and Vocational Training, where she coordinates the area of multiple literacies. The American Psychological Association (APA) states that the use of social networks is either harmful or beneficial for young people . In […]