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Illusory Memories Can Have Salutary Effects
“False memories tend to get a bad rap,” says developmental psychologist Mark L. Howe, of Lancaster University in England. Indeed, remembering events incorrectly or remembering events that didn’t happen can have grave consequences, such as the criminal conviction of an innocent person. “But false memories are a natural outcropping of memory in general. They must have some positive effect, too.” That argument—that memory illusions were evolutionarily adaptive and remain useful for psychological well being and problem-solving—is the subject of an intriguing paper in Current Directions in Psychological Science, a journal published by the Association for Psychological Science.
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OppNet Request for Applications: Mechanistic pathways linking psychosocial stress and behavior (R01)
OppNet, NIH’s Basic Behavioral and Social Science Opportunity Network, just released a new RFA for three-year research projects: Mechanistic pathways linking psychosocial stress and behavior (R01) This OppNet Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) encourages research grant applications that propose to investigate basic psychological, social, and environmental mechanisms and processes that link psychosocial stressors and behavior.
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Young Children Show Improved Verbal IQ After 20 Days of Exposure to Music-Based Cognitive Training ‘Cartoons’
Canadian scientists who specialize in learning, memory and language in children have found exciting evidence that pre-schoolers can improve their verbal intelligence after only 20 days of classroom instruction using interactive, music-based cognitive training cartoons. The study – conducted at York University by Dr. Sylvain Moreno, who is now with Baycrest’s Rotman Research Institute (RRI) – is posted online today in Psychological Science (a journal of the Association for Psychological Science), ahead of print publication in the October issue of the journal.
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Creative types are full of themselves, study confirms
msnbc.com: You might know some extremely creative people who are anything but humble about their talents -- the full-of-himself actor, the self-important artist, the vain musician, the pompous writer or -- possibly most annoying of all -- the insufferable ad agency creative type (think Don Draper from "Mad Men"). A new study reveals there may be a kernel of truth to these cultural stereotypes. The research, published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences, stopped short of labeling creative types as jerks, but it didn't paint a pretty portrait of some aspects of their personalities, either.
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People say they want to eat healthy, then order junk food
Two faces, double chin “Never mind that some restaurants have started listing calories on their menus,” says Associated Press. “Forget even that we keep saying we want to eat healthy. When Americans eat out, we order burgers and fries anyway. … In a country where more than two-thirds of the population is overweight or obese, food choices are often made on impulse, not intellect.
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Talk Therapy Lifts Severe Schizophrenics
The New York Times: People with severe schizophrenia who have been isolated, withdrawn and considered beyond help can learn to become more active, social and employable by engaging in a type of talk therapy that was invented to treat depression, scientists reported on Monday. These new findings suggest that such patients have far more capability to improve their lives than was previously assumed and, if replicated, could change the way that doctors treat the one million patients for whom the disorder is profoundly limiting. The therapy — a variant of cognitive behavior therapy, which focuses on defusing self-defeating assumptions — increased motivation and reduced symptoms.
