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Why Does Music Aid in Memorization?
The Wall Street Journal: The words to a holiday song bubble up to the surface of the brain, even decades since last hearing the tune. Yet recalling a bank-account password can put the mind in a twist. Neuroscientists have long debated the brain mechanisms related to memory, but they agree on one thing: Information set to music is among the easiest to remember. One expert, Henry L. Roediger III, professor of psychology at the Memory Lab at Washington University in St. Louis, explains how songs easily stick in the mind. The hippocampus and the frontal cortex are two areas in the brain associated with memory and they process millions of pieces of information every day.
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Science: A Laughing Matter?
NPR: The Guardian recently published an amusing compilation of science jokes solicited from a variety of scientists. They range from classics you may have come across, like these: A psychoanalyst shows a patient an inkblot, and asks him what he sees. The patient says: "A man and woman making love." The psychoanalyst shows him a second inkblot, and the patient says: "That's also a man and woman making love." The psychoanalyst says: "You are obsessed with sex." The patient says: "What do you mean I am obsessed? You are the one with all the dirty pictures." There are 10 kinds of people in this world, those who understand binary, and those who don't.
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How You Practice Matters for Learning a Skill Quickly
Practice alone doesn’t make perfect, but learning can be optimized if you practice in the right way, according to new research based on online gaming data from more than 850,000 people. The research, led by psychological scientist Tom Stafford of the University of Sheffield (UK), suggests that the way you practice is just as important as how often you practice when it comes to learning quickly. The new findings are published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. Stafford and Michael Dewar from The New York Times Research and Development Lab analyzed data from 854,064 people playing an online game called Axon.
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Zyklisches Denken hilft beim Sparen (Cyclical thinking helps savings)
ORF Austria: Weihnachten ist nicht gerade die beste Zeit, um sich Gedanken übers Sparen zu machen. Während das Weihnachtsgeld direkt in Geschenke, Punsch und Skiausflüge investiert wird, schaffen es die Wenigsten, noch ein paar Ersparnisse ins neue Jahr zu retten. Dennoch: Die Österreicher wollen sparen. Laut einer Umfrage der Erste Bank liegt der durchschnittlich geplante Betrag für Neu- und Wiederveranlagung für die nächsten zwölf Monate bei 5.200 Euro - das sind 900 Euro mehr, als die Menschen noch vor einem Jahr angegeben hatten. Read the whole story: ORF Austria
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As dating apps grow in popularity, people still feel some stigma
The Washington Post: Online dating: More and more people are doing it, but no one wants to talk about it. On the record, that is. A recent Pew study found that 11 percent of American adults have used online dating sites or mobile apps — a figure that was just 3 percent five years ago. Among Internet users who were currently single and looking for a partner, 38 percent had tried online dating. ... “I think people don’t like to admit that they are having trouble in their romantic life,” said Eli Finkel, a social psychology professor at Northwestern University. “That concern is misplaced. It is totally normal to figure out who is compatible for you.” Read the whole story: The Washington Post
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A New Focus on Depression
The New York Times: When will we ever get depression under control? Of all the major illnesses, mental or physical, depression has been one of the toughest to subdue. Despite the ubiquity of antidepressant drugs — there are now 26 to choose from — only a third of patients with major depression will experience a full remission after the first round of treatment, and successive treatments with different drugs will give some relief to just 20 to 25 percent more. About 30 percent of people with depression have some degree of treatment resistance. And the greater the degree of resistance, the more likely a future relapse, even if the patient continues taking the drug. ...
