-
Keep smiling… the world is doing fine, say American authors
The Guardian: A rash of optimistic books is being published in the US, as authors do their best to lift the gloom created by a news agenda dominated by world recession, wars, floods and famine. The latest to appear is The Secret Peace by Jesse Richards, with its controversial theory on the modern human condition: the world is a nice place and getting better. When the Observer met Richards last week, he remained steadfast in his lonely insistence on a state of optimism when it comes to the human race's progress. "It is easy to relate to a short-term disaster. It is harder to understand larger, long-term statistics.
-
Technical Aptitude: Do Women Score Lower Because They Just Aren’t Interested?
Boys do better on tests of technical aptitude (for example, mechanical aptitude tests) than girls. The same is true for adults. A new study published in Perspectives on Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, describes a theory explaining how the difference comes about: the root cause is that boys are just more interested in technical things, like taking apart a bike, than girls are. Aptitude tests are used to predict how well people will do in school and on jobs. These tests focus on particular skills or kinds of specific aptitude, like verbal or technical aptitude.
-
Language and Cognition
Gabriella Vigliocco investigates how our brains integrate language and cognition, examining a variety of languages, both spoken and signed, and using tools from several disciplines, including neuroscience and experimental psychology. Over the years, her work has contributed to our understanding of how we represent meaning, how cognition shapes languages and how language shapes cognition. She has challenged many traditional ideas about language, like the notion that language is a modular and purely symbolic system that does not entail direct links with our sensory-motor and affective experience.
-
Steven Pinker on the Colbert Report
Appearing on “The Colbert Report,” psychological scientist Steven Pinker discusses his book The Stuff of Thought: Language As a Window Into Human Nature.
-
Don’t Worry, Be Happy – Understanding Mindfulness Meditation
In times of stress, we’re often encouraged to pause for a moment and simply be in the ‘now.’ This kind of mindfulness, an essential part of Buddhist and Indian Yoga traditions, has entered the mainstream as people try to find ways to combat stress and improve their quality of life. And research suggests that mindfulness meditation can have benefits for health and performance, including improved immune function, reduced blood pressure, and enhanced cognitive function.
-
Practice Doesn’t Always Make Perfect, Study Suggests
U.S. News & World Report: Practice is an essential part of gaining excellence in a specific skill, but to become truly great other qualities must come into play, such as IQ or working memory, according to researchers who studied how practice affects the success of chess players. For the study, published in the October issue of Current Directions in Psychological Science, the researchers also considered earlier research and noted that practicing harder or longer doesn't compensate for the lack of other important traits relevant to a certain activity.