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Where’s My SuperHero Cape?
Woman's Day: A few days ago I talked about divorced people having a higher incidence of early death. Gee, that was swell, wasn't it? That was the bad news, though, and now for the good news: stress makes you stronger. A study done for Current Directions in Psychological Science shows that hardships make you more resilient, and better able to cope with stress in comparison to those who haven't faced as many hardships in their own lives. Mark D. Seery, Ph.D., is the study author, and a psychology professor at the University at Buffalo. He likens living through adversity to the effect of exercise making your body stronger: Read the full story: Woman's Day
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Betty White turns 90: What are her secrets to longevity?
Los Angeles Times: Betty White celebrated her 90th birthday this week, and the veteran actress is still going strong. Between appearing as Elka Ostrovsky in the TV Land sitcom "Hot in Cleveland," working with animal organizations and winning awards, she is one busy woman. We figured she must have some secret to living a long, full and productive life that the rest of us need to know. So we talked to Howard Friedman, coauthor of "The Longevity Project: Surprising Discoveries for Health and Long Life from the Landmark Eight-Decade Study" (Hudson Street Press, 2011) to find out what lessons we can learn from White. Friedman is also a distinguished professor of psychology at UC Riverside.
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Autism Expert on Proposed Changes to Autism Diagnosis
Autism has been the subject of much discussion recently due to proposed changes in diagnostic criteria, as laid out in the forthcoming fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5). These proposed changes would collapse three current diagnoses – Autistic Disorder, Asperger Disorder, and a diagnosis called PDD-Not Otherwise Specified – into one diagnosis. This change has led to concerns about how individuals with these previous diagnoses, as well as individuals who have yet to receive a diagnosis, will be impacted.
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New Insight Into Aging Brains
The Wall Street Journal: Nearly a quarter of the changes often seen in a person's intelligence level over the course of a lifetime may be due to genes, a proportion never before estimated, new research shows. The study suggests that genes may partly explain why some people's brains age better than others, even though environmental factors likely play a greater role over a lifetime. Understanding the factors behind healthy mental aging has become an increasingly vital one for societies with large elderly populations. However, it isn't an easy task. Read the full story: The Wall Street Journal
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New Research From Psychological Science
Overcoming the Negative Consequences of Interference From Recognition Memory Testing Kenneth J. Malmberg, Amy H. Criss, Tarun H. Gangwani, and Richard M. Shiffrin Researchers have found that the more people are tested the worse their ability to recall and recognize past information becomes. This phenomenon is known as output interference. In this study participants were presented with words from two different categories, and were tested on their memory for the words. The words were tested in either a random order, in two large-blocks by category, or in alternating short-blocks by category.
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When Making Meaning of the World, the Brain is a Multi-tasker
How does the brain confer meaning on the things we perceive in the world? “Many of us favor the theory that, whether it comes in through the eyes or ears, through reading [or other stimuli], it’s all eventually arriving at a common place where the meaning of things is represented,” says Massachusetts Institute of Technology psychologist Mary C. Potter. “If that were so,” she continues, “you’d expect there to be a problem in extracting meanings simultaneously from different sources.” That is why Potter and her MIT colleague Ansgar D.
