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Nice Results, But What Did You Expect?
National Geographic: In 2008, a team of psychologists from the University of Michigan apparently found a simple memory task that could boost intelligence. They asked volunteers to watch a sequence of symbols while listening to a series of letters. Holding both streams of information in their heads, they had to say if the current symbol or letter matched the one from a few cycles back. This memory-based “dual n-back” task seemed to improve the volunteers’ fluid intelligence—a general ability to solve problems that goes well beyond mere memory. The team said that their study opened up “a wide range of applications”.
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Early Spatial Reasoning Predicts Later Creativity and Innovation, Especially in STEM Fields
Exceptional spatial ability at age 13 predicts creative and scholarly achievements over 30 years later, according to results from a new longitudinal study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. The study, conducted by psychology researcher David Lubinski and colleagues at Vanderbilt University, provides evidence that early spatial ability -- the skill required to mentally manipulate 2D and 3D objects -- predicts the development of new knowledge, and especially innovation in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) domains, above and beyond more traditional measures of mathematical and verbal ability.
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How Faith Can Affect Therapy
The New York Times: Can belief in God predict how someone responds to mental health treatment? A recent study suggests it might. Researchers at McLean Hospital in Belmont, Mass., enrolled 159 men and women in a cognitive behavioral therapy program that involved, on average, 10 daylong sessions of group therapy, individual counseling and, in some cases, medications. About 60 percent of the participants were being treated for depression, while others had bipolar disorder, anxiety or other diagnoses. All were asked to rate their spirituality by answering a single question: “To what extent do you believe in God?” ...
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Aging Photographs and Cognitive Quilts
The Huffington Post: I am a Baby Boomer and a child of the '60s, and for both those reasons I am keenly aware of my memory, and its failings. I'm not alone in this. For a growing number of adults, questions about cognitive aging are increasingly personal and relevant. We want to know what, specifically, will keep us sharp into old age. Will reading Tolstoy do it? Or playing racquetball? ... The scientists took a variety of cognitive measures before and after the classes began.
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Expansive Postures May Lead Us to Dishonesty
Scientific American: Expansive body postures, like stretching one’s legs, confer a sense of power. And studies show that the feeling of power can lead to dishonest behavior. Now researchers find that just sitting at a big desk or in a large chair can also influence one’s honesty. ... In a real-world setting the researchers also found that those who drove cars with expansive seats parked illegally more often that those with smaller driver’s seats. The studies are in the journal Psychological Science. Read the whole story: Scientific American
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How to Escape from Bad Decisions
LinkedIn: When we make a choice that doesn’t work out, we find it remarkably difficult to cut our losses and walk away. Think about the last time you waited for 45 minutes at a restaurant, and there was no sign that your table would be ready in the near future. You should have probably headed to another restaurant, but you’d already waited 45 minutes, so how could you leave? Or you hired an employee who struggled to master the key skills for the job, and after several months of training and coaching, things hadn’t improved. You rotated him to two different positions that seem like a better fit, and he underperformed there too.
