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Discovering the Roots of Memory
The Atlantic: As a 95-year-old psychologist, Brenda Milner still remembers the “bad old days” of frontal lobotomies as a treatment for psychosis. In fact, her research provided some of the first evidence showing why such invasive brain operations could be harmful. Milner, who teaches and conducts research at the Montreal Neurological Institute at McGill University in Quebec, is perhaps most known for her work with Henry Molaison, a patient formerly known as H.M.
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The Art of the Staredown
Fox Sports: Nobody can quite remember when staredowns became a major part of the UFC's hype machine. Back in 2001, shortly after Zuffa bought the company, opposing fighters weren’t even required to stand in front of each other after weighing in. Some would shake hands, others would walk off to a neutral corner of the stage before parting for fight night. Most times, the main event fighters would come out first and the proceedings would make their way backwards. It was an event with no focus, no build and no crescendo. If there was a single turning point, it probably came at UFC 40, when Tito Ortiz and Ken Shamrock took things to their logical conclusion.
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Shortstop Psychology: The Mystery of the Yips
The Huffington Post: Henry Skrimshander is a shortstop and the star of Chad Harbach's lyrical novel The Art of Fielding. Henry plays for the fictional Westish College, and his flawless defensive play is attracting the attention of major league scouts. But just as he is about to break the NCAA record for error-free games, he forgets how to throw. Just like that, and for no apparent reason, even the simplest routine toss to the first baseman becomes impossible. Henry has a case of the "yips" -- a well-documented syndrome that has ended real-life major league careers.
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New Research From Psychological Science
Read about the latest research published in Psychological Science: Children's Arithmetic Development: It Is Number Knowledge, Not the Approximate Number Sense, That Counts Silke M. Göbel, Sarah E. Watson, Arne Lervåg, and Charles Hulme To examine whether approximate number sense and knowledge of the Arabic numeral system influence future arithmetic ability, children were assessed for nonverbal ability, vocabulary, number-identification skill, letter-comparison ability, magnitude-comparison ability, and arithmetic skill at age 6 and again for magnitude-comparison ability and arithmetic skill 11 months later.
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The psychology of hate: How we deny human beings their humanity
Salon: One of the most amazing court cases you probably have never heard of had come down to this. Standing Bear, the reluctant chief of the Ponca tribe, rose on May 2, 1879, to address a packed audience in a Nebraska courtroom. At issue was the existence of a mind that many were unable to see. Standing Bear’s journey to this courtroom had been excruciating. The U.S. government had decided several years earlier to force the 752 Ponca Native Americans off their lands along the fertile Niobrara River and move them to the desolate Indian Territory, in what is now northern Oklahoma.
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You’re Not Always as Capable as You Think
Inflated egos are a staple of professional environments. Most people will endure colleagues who act as if they, and only they, can carry out certain tasks, lead a work team effectively, or carry the company softball team to a big victory. But studies show that those perceptions are often out of proportion — that a person’s views about their own talents and skills often fly well above their actual performance. The importance of accuracy in self-insight has not been lost on psychologists, leading to a wealth of studies examining this topic. But these studies have typically only examined perceptions of ability in one area.
