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Greater Working Memory Capacity Benefits Analytic, But Not Creative, Problem-Solving
Anyone who has tried to remember a ten-digit phone number or a nine-item grocery list knows that we can only hold so much information in mind at a given time. Our working memory capacity is decidedly finite - it reflects our ability to focus and control attention and strongly influences our ability to solve problems. In a new article in the August issue of Current Directions in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, Jennifer Wiley and Andrew Jarosz of the University of Illinois at Chicago explore the role of working memory capacity in both mathematical and creative problem solving.
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Would You Rather Win Silver Or Bronze? (Be Careful What You Wish For)
NPR: Both athletes were U.S. swimmers, both were dripping wet after finishing an Olympics final, and both had just won medals. The first said, "It's not my normal specialty. ... We went out there and raced tough – and just came up a little short." The second had a beaming face. He said, "[I] swam my own race. And knew I had a lane, and had an opportunity, and I went for it. It worked out, you know, it's just awesome that I get to go on the podium tonight. Honestly, I'm really proud of myself!" The disappointed athlete was Ryan Lochte, seconds after the 4x100m freestyle relay at the London 2012 Olympics. The guy who was thrilled?
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Simply Smiling Can Actually Reduce Stress
Smithsonian Magazine: It sounds like the most useless advice imaginable: Just put on a happy face. Conventional wisdom is that smiling is an effect of feeling happy, rather than the other way around. Simply smiling in stressful situations can’t possibly make you feel any better, right? Wrong. A fascinating new study by University of Kansas psychologists that will soon be published in the journal Psychological Science indicates that, in some circumstances, smiling can actually reduce stress and help us feel better.
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Solving For X, Among the Neurons
Huffington Post: I have a fence that needs scraping and painting, and I'm pretty sure I can do the whole job in six hours. My friend Jack, who is an experienced painter, wants me to hire him. He promises he can have a new coat of paint on the fence in four hours. I'm tempted, but I'm wondering, what if Jack and I work together? If he does the trim and other detail work, and I do the easy brushing, we should be able to wrap this job up by lunchtime, easy. But how long will it take, exactly?
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Lolo’s No Choke
TIME: Choke. The word just sounds so noxious, really. Never mind its ties to suffocation and death. Just say it: choke. Athletes in particular would like to strangle the scribe who first applied such an ugly term to their most spectacular — and public — failures. Count Lolo Jones among them. Jones, the telegenic American hurdler, lived through a nightmare in Beijing. With a commanding lead in the 100-m event, on the verge of taking the gold and winning Americans’ hearts with her good looks and homeless-to-heroine story, she clipped the ninth hurdle. There are 10 of them. She stumbled across the line to finish in seventh place, then tumbled to the ground in a pool of tears.
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Even a fake grin may help lower heart rate in stressful situations
CBS News: A fake smile might be better for you than no grin at all, according to a new study. Researchers at the University of Kansas discovered that if people were told to hold a facial position similar to smiling - whether they knew they were supposed to be grinning or not - they had lower heart rates after a stressful situation. "This is not going to cure you if you have chronic stress or a major life event like a tornado," Dr. Sarah Pressman, assistant professor of psychology and co-author of the study, told HealthPop. "But, it's almost impossible to be really angry or really stressed with this big smile on your face....
