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Making the ‘Irrelevant’ Relevant to Understand Memory and Aging
Age alters memory. But in what ways, and why? These questions comprise a vast puzzle for neurologists and psychologists. A new study looked at one puzzle piece: how older and younger adults encode and recall distracting, or irrelevant, information. The results, published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association of Psychological Science, can help scientists better understand memory and aging. “Our world contains so much information; we don’t always know which is relevant and which is irrelevant,” said Nigel Gopie, who cowrote the study with Fergus I.M. Craik and Lynn Hasher, all from the University of Toronto’s Rotman Research Institute.
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Members in the News
Jonathan M. Adler, Olin College of Engineering, Elle, Aug 1, 2009: Agency in Personal Narratives. George A. Bonanno, Columbia University, The New York Times, Aug 18, 2009: Mental Stress Training Is Planned for U.S. Soldiers. Andrew M. Colman, University of Leicester, Sky News, Jul 8, 2009; Daily Mail (UK), Daily Telegraph (Sydney, Australia), The Herald (Scotland), The Times of India, Jul 9, 2009; Le Scienza (Italy), Jul 10, 2009; MSNBC, Jul 14, 2009: Research Shows That “Invisible Hand” Guides Evolution of Cooperative Turn-Taking. Harris M. Cooper, Duke University, The New York Times Room for Debate Blog, Aug 30, 2009: The Crush of Summer Homework.
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Following the Crowd: Brain Images Offer Clues to How and Why We Conform
HealthCanal: What is conformity? A true adoption of what other people think—or a guise to avoid social rejection? Scientists have been vexed sorting the two out, even when they’ve questioned people in private. Now three Harvard University psychological scientists have used brain scans to show what happens when we take others’ opinions to heart: We take them “to brain”—specifically, to the orbitofrontal cortex and nucleus accumbens. These regions compute what we value and feel rewarded by, both primitive things like water and food and socially meaningful things like money. Read the whole story: HealthCanal
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Study reveals parents in frontier states more likely to give babies unusual names
The Daily Mail: If you're called Jacob, Michael or Emily, there's a better chance your parents will be from an an older state in the Northeast and gave you a common name, a Psychological Science journal study says. Parents in the original 13 states tend to choose more common baby names, compared to those in more recently-established states like Washington and Oregon. Read the whole story: The Daily Mail
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Out of Work, Out of Time
The New York Times: Since losing my job I’ve struggled with countless questions for which I have no suitable response: Is it healthy for my family to subsist on a diet entirely of packaged ramen, canned beans and grocery-store samples, and if so, must it be certified organic? Does baby really need a new pair of shoes? If I’m so smart how come I’m so broke? The worst question, though, and the one most likely to induce paroxysms of guilt, irritation and half-joking existential despair, is one that seems so simple to answer, but has proven the most vexing: if I’m not working, why don’t I have more time?
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Early Childhood Might Affect Love Life in Adult
U.S. News & World Report: How quickly and smoothly people move on from a lover's quarrel has a lot to do with the relationships each partner had in earliest childhood with the people who raised them, new research reveals. The finding stems from the the University of Minnesota's ongoing tracking of a group of people that began in the mid-1970s, before the study participants were even born. Doctoral candidate Jessica E. Salvatore and a team of researchers from the University of Minnesota report their observations in the current issue of Psychological Science. Read the whole story: U.S. News & World Report
