-
Speaking Multiple Languages Can Influence Children’s Emotional Development
On the classic TV show I Love Lucy, Ricky Ricardo was known for switching over to rapid-fire Spanish whenever he was upset, despite the fact Lucy had no idea what her Cuban husband was saying. These scenes were comedy gold, but they also provided a relatable portrayal of the linguistic phenomenon of code-switching. This kind of code-switching, or switching back and forth between different languages, happens all the time in multilingual environments, and often in emotional situations.
-
Who Influences Your Vote? It May Depend on How Soon the Election Is
Neighbors’ lawn signs, public opinion polls and even a conversation in the next restaurant booth can affect how people vote in an election. But it all depends on how far away the election is.
-
Disharmony in the Land of Nod
The most compelling personal memoirs—Tobias Wolff’s This Boy’s Life, Mary Karr’s The Liars' Club, and others—are not happy stories. They are recollections of childhood adversity, and rarely are they triumphant survivors' tales. The most honest of these remembrances are accounts of the lingering scars and damage done. And damage is done. Scientists have thoroughly documented the pernicious effects of traumatic childhood events, right down to the cellular level. The young brain is highly vulnerable to all sorts of stress, and study after study has shown that childhood troubles can skew the development of key neural networks involved in emotional stability.
-
Mind games help athletes psych their way to victory
msnbc: Nearly three dozen studies have analyzed sports "self-talk," in which athletes tell themselves variants of "I've got this!" or "I can beat this guy!" Sports psychologist Antonis Hatzigeorgiadis of the University of Thessaly in Greece and his colleagues found that the strategy doesn't always work. In general, self-talk worked better for fine motor movements such as those involving the fingers, as in archery, rather than for gross motor skills using the large muscles of the legs and arms, as in track.
-
To Boost Memory, Shut Your Eyes and Relax
TIME: Forget brain-training exercises, 12-hour shifts and those long, uninterrupted, caffeine-fueled study binges. When you really need new information to sink in, you can’t skimp on taking breaks, new research suggests. That’s the message from a soon-to-be-published study by psychologists and neuroscientists at the University of Edinburgh, in Scotland, who asked a small group of normally aging elderly men and women to recall as many details as possible from two stories they were told. Following one of the stories (but not always the same one for all the participants), the men and women were instructed to relax, take a brief break and close their eyes for 10 minutes in a dark room.
-
Selling More Than a Flashy Deal
The New York Times: Dozens of flash sites are now catering to niches, be it Zulily (children’s goods), One Kings Lane (home furnishings) or JackThreads (men’s wear). At the same time, a new crop of members-only sites that look just like flash sales (they send daily e-mail blasts and dangle items for a limited time in glossy virtual storefronts) has emerged. Except that these sites don’t offer deep discounts. In fact, they don’t offer discounts at all.
