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Autism Expert on Proposed Changes to Autism Diagnosis
Autism has been the subject of much discussion recently due to proposed changes in diagnostic criteria, as laid out in the forthcoming fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5). These proposed changes would collapse three current diagnoses – Autistic Disorder, Asperger Disorder, and a diagnosis called PDD-Not Otherwise Specified – into one diagnosis. This change has led to concerns about how individuals with these previous diagnoses, as well as individuals who have yet to receive a diagnosis, will be impacted.
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New Insight Into Aging Brains
The Wall Street Journal: Nearly a quarter of the changes often seen in a person's intelligence level over the course of a lifetime may be due to genes, a proportion never before estimated, new research shows. The study suggests that genes may partly explain why some people's brains age better than others, even though environmental factors likely play a greater role over a lifetime. Understanding the factors behind healthy mental aging has become an increasingly vital one for societies with large elderly populations. However, it isn't an easy task. Read the full story: The Wall Street Journal
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New Research From Psychological Science
Overcoming the Negative Consequences of Interference From Recognition Memory Testing Kenneth J. Malmberg, Amy H. Criss, Tarun H. Gangwani, and Richard M. Shiffrin Researchers have found that the more people are tested the worse their ability to recall and recognize past information becomes. This phenomenon is known as output interference. In this study participants were presented with words from two different categories, and were tested on their memory for the words. The words were tested in either a random order, in two large-blocks by category, or in alternating short-blocks by category.
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When Making Meaning of the World, the Brain is a Multi-tasker
How does the brain confer meaning on the things we perceive in the world? “Many of us favor the theory that, whether it comes in through the eyes or ears, through reading [or other stimuli], it’s all eventually arriving at a common place where the meaning of things is represented,” says Massachusetts Institute of Technology psychologist Mary C. Potter. “If that were so,” she continues, “you’d expect there to be a problem in extracting meanings simultaneously from different sources.” That is why Potter and her MIT colleague Ansgar D.
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Can’t go anywhere without your sat-nav? You might be wiping out your memory
The Daily Mail: They are supposed to make getting around easier. But over-reliance on sat-navs could leave us completely lost, a study has suggested. Scientists think our memory for places is like a mental map which we have learnt from looking at a real map of where we live. Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics in Germany tested 26 residents of a town, all of whom had lived there for at least two years. Read the whole story: The Daily Mail
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Math Gender Gap Not Result of Girls’ Low Self-Esteem, Researchers Say
The Huffington Post: Are girls bad at math? From a talking Barbie doll saying "Math class is tough" to Larry Summers, the ex-President of Harvard University, speaking on the "different availability of aptitude," it's an issue that's seen plenty of controversy. As one of the most sensitive topics in education today, there's plenty of research on it, and even a body of research on the research. A study to be published in Review of General Psychology, falls into the latter category.
