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You don’t always know what you’re saying
Nature: If you think you know what you just said, think again. People can be tricked into believing they have just said something they did not, researchers report this week. The dominant model of how speech works is that it is planned in advance — speakers begin with a conscious idea of exactly what they are going to say. But some researchers think that speech is not entirely planned, and that people know what they are saying in part through hearing themselves speak. So cognitive scientist Andreas Lind and his colleagues at Lund University in Sweden wanted to see what would happen if someone said one word, but heard themselves saying another.
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New Research From Clinical Psychological Science
Read about the latest research published in Clinical Psychological Science: Learning and Memory Consolidation Processes of Attention-Bias Modification in Anxious and Nonanxious Individuals Rany Abend, Daniel S. Pine, Nathan A. Fox, and Yair Bar-Haim Attention-bias-modification (ABM) paradigms are a type of computerized cognitive-training intervention that reduces attentional bias toward threatening stimuli. Research on ABM has tended to focus on the attentional changes produced by these programs rather than on the learning and consolidation processes that occur during training.
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How Being Grateful Can Change Your Life
Fast Company: Keeping track of what you are grateful for may sound like like something Oprah Winfrey suggested decades ago. But today, several new studies suggest that practicing gratitude isn’t just for the Pollyannas of the world. Here are three benefits to being grateful: Gratitude is about focusing on other people, says Dr. Jo-Ann Tsang, a psychology professor at Baylor University, who led a study which will appear in the July 2014 issue of the journal Personality and Individual Differences. “Previous research that we and others have done finds that people are motivated to help people that help them--and to help others as well.
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Why students using laptops learn less in class even when they really are taking notes
The Washington Post: Are you one of those old-school types who insists that kids learn better when they leave the laptops at home and take lecture notes in longhand? If so, you’re right. There’s new evidence to prove it, and it’s unsettling because so many students aren’t really taught longhand anymore. According to a new study based on a series of lab-based experiments comparing how much students learned after listening to the same lectures, there’s no contest. Handwriters learn better, hands down. The ones who took their notes in longhand demonstrated in tests that they got more out of the lectures than the typists. Read the whole story: The Washington Post
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Doing This and That: Are You a ‘Precrastinator’?
The Huffington Post: This morning, while the coffee was brewing, I walked out my back door, strolled to my mailbox at the curb, and strolled back. Along the way, I picked up not only yesterday's mail, but also the daily paper, which had been tossed on the lawn, and an empty garbage can. I put the garbage can back where it belongs, near the garage, and brought the mail and paper inside. I did this without a glitch, effortlessly. Or so it seemed. Of course, it was not effortless. I had to lift and walk and carry and lift again, and so forth. I also had to plan. Should I walk all the way to the mailbox, get the mail, then pick up the paper? Or grab the garbage can on the way to the curb?
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Thinking of Requesting a Specific Teacher for Your Child? Think Twice
The New York Times: There are really two questions here, so I will address them in order. First question: How hard should you push to ensure your daughter is assigned to the teacher you feel is best for her? School administrators had much to say on this topic. Most responded that “it never hurts to ask,” and encouraged parents with a preference to let administrators know about their preferences early in the process.
