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Advancing Science Through the Use of “New Statistics”
There are several steps that researchers can take to bolster the integrity of their work, but embracing the use of the “new statistics” of effect sizes, estimation, and meta-analysis is a particularly important one, argues psychological scientist Geoff Cumming of La Trobe University in Australia. As Cumming notes in a new tutorial published online in Psychological Science, the critical flaw of the traditional statistical approach – null-hypothesis significance testing (NHST) – is that it disposes scientists to think of their research aims and results in black and white.
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Sleep Unbinds Memories From Their Emotional Context
Many of us might remember our parents insisting that we get a good night’s sleep before a big exam or test, with the argument that being well rested would help us perform at our best. Although we may not have believed our parents back then, perhaps we should have. Research is showing that sleep plays an important role in the stabilization and strengthening of memories. In particular, research has shown that sleep makes memories more resistant to interference from competing lexical information. The authors of a recent article in the journal Cortex wondered if sleep could also protect memories from emotional interference.
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Visual Aids Can Help People Better Understand Health Risks
In order to be able to make sound health decisions, patients need to understand the risks and the benefits that come with medical treatments, screenings, and lifestyle choices. But many people have difficulty understanding the
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Perspectives on Psychological Science
Perspectives on Psychological Science: Volume 8, Number 6 Perspectives on Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, publishes an eclectic mix of provocative reports and articles, including broad integrative reviews, overviews of research programs, meta-analyses, theoretical statements, and book reviews. This new issue of Perspectives on Psychological Science includes a special section celebrating 25 years of APS. ________________________________________________________________________________________ Regulatory Flexibility: An Individual Differences Perspective on Coping and Emotion Regulation George A. Bonanno and Charles L.
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Give Your Halloween Candy a Flavor Boost with Psychological Science
Late on Halloween night, with candy strewn across the dining room table, millions of children across the United States will enjoy the hard-earned fruits of their trick-or-treating labors. After picking through the spoils and immediately
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To Call a Player’s Poker Hand, Look to the Arms
Professional poker players rely on the ability to divorce their facial expressions from their emotional state – no matter how good, or how bad, their hand is, they have to maintain an inscrutable “poker face.” But new research suggests that they may do well to focus on another body part: The arms. The research, published in Psychological Science, suggests that homing in on only the player’s arms may be the most reliable way to call a bluff. Psychological scientist Michael Slepian and colleagues had 78 undergraduate participants watch two-second video clips from the World Series of Poker.
