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Hong Kong skyscrapers toppling? No, it just looks that way
NBC: The illusion of toppling skyscrapers in Hong Kong is now yielding insights on how the brain distinguishes up from down, researchers say. A popular way to gaze at the Hong Kong skyline that millions of people take advantage of every year is to ride a tram there up Victoria Peak, the highest mountain on Hong Kong Island. "On one trip, I noticed that the city's skyscrapers next to the tram started to appear very tilted, as if they were falling, which anyone with common sense knows is impossible," said lead researcher Chia-huei Tseng, a cognitive psychologist at the University of Hong Kong.
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What Is Nostalgia Good For? Quite a Bit, Research Shows
The New York Times: Not long after moving to the University of Southampton, Constantine Sedikides had lunch with a colleague in the psychology department and described some unusual symptoms he’d been feeling. A few times a week, he was suddenly hit with nostalgia for his previous home at the University of North Carolina: memories of old friends, Tar Heel basketball games, fried okra, the sweet smells of autumn in Chapel Hill. ... In the 19th and 20th centuries nostalgia was variously classified as an “immigrant psychosis,” a form of “melancholia” and a “mentally repressive compulsive disorder” among other pathologies. But when Dr.
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ADHD Drugs Don’t Boost Kids’ Grades
The Wall Street Journal: It's no longer shocking to hear of children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder—and others simply facing a big test—taking ADHD medicine to boost their performance in school. But new studies point to a problem: There's little evidence that the drugs actually improve academic outcomes. Stimulants used to treat ADHD like Ritalin and Adderall are sometimes called "cognitive enhancers" because they have been shown in a number of studies to improve attention, concentration and even certain types of memory in the short-term. Similar drugs were given to World War II soldiers to improve their ability to stay alert while scanning radars for enemy aircraft. ...
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The Surprising Benefits Of Working Backward
Forbes: The exercise, and its reward, put me in mind of how coming at things backward, awkwardly and in uncertain steps can lead to unanticipated and astonishing breakthroughs. And how discoveries can be made at this intersection of the comedic and the sublime. ... The value of this tactic isn’t just the stuff of folk wisdom and unexpected discoveries. Dutch neuroscientists were curious whether different mental processes are employed when we are walking toward something or away from it. Their study, published in Psychological Science in May 2009, found that subjects who walked even a few steps backward were far more focused and attentive than those who didn’t. Read the whole story: Forbes
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Aging photographs and cognitive quilts
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? Taking a class in Civil War history, or Portuguese? How about mastering Thai cooking? Or simply surrounding ourselves with good friends and stimulating conversation? Unhappily, there is very little empirical evidence available to help Baby Boomers sort all this out.
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Placebo Effect Largely Ignored in Psychological Intervention Studies
Many brain-training companies tout the scientific backing of their products -- the laboratory studies that reveal how their programs improve your brainpower. But according to a new report, most intervention studies like these have a critical flaw: They do not adequately account for the placebo effect. The new analysis appears in the journal Perspectives on Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.
