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Brief Memory Test ‘Ages’ Older Adults
A simple memory test can have a noticeable impact on just how old some older adults feel, results from a cognitive study show.
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New Research on Genetics and Intelligence
Read about the latest research on genetics and intelligence: Literacy and Numeracy Are More Heritable Than Intelligence in Primary School Yulia Kovas, Ivan Voronin, Andrey Kaydalov, Sergey B. Malykh, Philip S. Dale, and Robert Plomin Are literacy and numeracy less heritable than general cognitive ability? Monozygotic and dizygotic twins were assessed for literacy, numeracy, and general cognitive ability at ages 7, 9, and 12. Literacy and numeracy were found to be more heritable than general cognitive ability at ages 7 and 9 but not at age 12.
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Genes May Predispose Some People to Focus on the Negative
New research finds that a previously known gene variant may predispose individuals to perceive emotional events — especially negative ones — more vividly than others. The new findings are published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. “This is the first study to find that this genetic variation can significantly affect how people see and experience the world,” says psychological scientist Rebecca Todd of the University of British Columbia.
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‘Brain Training’ May Boost Working Memory, But Not Intelligence
While brain training programs might strengthen your ability to hold information in mind, they probably won’t benefit the kind of intelligence that helps you reason and solve problems.
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On the Political Fringes, Feelings of Superiority Abound
Ideologues on both ends of the political spectrum are equally likely to believe their opinions are superior to others’, but their feelings of superiority emerge for distinct political issues.
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New Research From Psychological Science
Read about the latest research published in Psychological Science: Genes for Emotion-Enhanced Remembering Are Linked to Enhanced Perceiving Rebecca M. Todd, Daniel J. Müller, Daniel H. Lee, Amanda Robertson, Tayler Eaton, Natalie Freeman, Daniela J. Palombo, Brian Levine, and Adam K. Anderson A deletion variant of the ADRA2B gene has been linked to emotional enhancement of memory and susceptibility to traumatic memories. The authors investigated whether this gene variant is also related to affective biases, particularly for negative stimuli. Participants were genotyped for the ADRA2B gene and took part in an attentional-blink task that contained positive, negative, and neutral words.