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Memrise Prize Aimed at Spurring Innovations in Language Learning
David Shanks and Rosalind Potts, scientists in the Division of Psychology and Language Sciences at University College London, United Kingdom, have teamed up with the online learning community Memrise to tackle an age-old problem: how to learn a new language — fast. The $10,000 Memrise Prize challenges contestants to “create the most powerful methodology for memorizing new information.” Contestants will devise a 1-hour learning program to teach English speakers previously unfamiliar Lithuanian vocabulary. Those programs that perform well against a control method will pass to the next round of the contest to be reviewed by independent judges, including experts on memory and neuroscience.
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APS Announces Third Replication Project
DEADLINE FOR PROPOSALS EXTENDED TO 9 JANUARY
Two months after APS published its first Registered Replication Report (RRR), the plan for the third RRR has been finalized and editors are accepting proposals from researchers who would like to participate in the large-scale replication by running the study in their lab. Roy Baumeister and colleagues (1998; Muraven, Tice, & Baumeister, 1998) proposed that performance on tasks requiring self-control is governed by a general, unitary, and finite "internal" resource.
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Focusing on the Past or Future Shapes Spatial Perception of Time
We often think about the future as being in front of us and the past as being at our back – as we walk, places we pass are behind us, and places we have yet to reach lie ahead. But not every culture views time the same way. For instance, although the Arabic dialect spoken in Morocco refers to time in the same way that English does, previous research suggests that Moroccans have a tendency to see the past as being in front of them and the future as being behind them.
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Noba Psychology: 2015 Student Video Award
The 2015 Student Video Award gives college students a chance to engage in active, creative learning by making short videos about important concepts in psychology. The most outstanding entries will become part of the Noba digital textbook to be viewed by other psychology students around the world. The focus in 2015 is Social Influence. We challenge students to choose a central concept from one of the online modules below and bring it to life in engaging and memorable ways. Noba will award $6,000 for the top honor and $3,000 and $1,000 awards for the second and third place submissions, respectively.
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Women in Academic Science: A Changing Landscape
Read the Full Text (PDF, HTML) Although it is commonly known that women are underrepresented in many scientific disciplines, research examining the underpinnings of this gender imbalance has produced contradictory results. In this issue of Psychological Science in the Public Interest (Volume 15, Number 3), psychological scientists Stephen Ceci and Wendy Williams (Cornell University) and economists Donna Ginther (University of Kansas) and Shulamit Kahn (Boston University) provide a comprehensive life-course examination of the issues contributing to gender disparities in the sciences.
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Ebola Scare Could Heighten Fears About Other Illnesses, Research Suggests
Americans are now fretting over an illness that they have almost no chance of contracting. Schools have closed, businesses have temporarily shut down, and people who have traveled to West Africa are being shunned — all due to three confirmed cases, and one fatality, of Ebola in Dallas. As APS Fellow Paul Slovic tells Time, the chilling lethality of the Ebola virus leads people to worry about contracting the disease despite the miniscule probability they will do so. What’s more, research suggests that the public panic over Ebola may prompt people to start worrying about their health in general. During the 2009 swine flu pandemic, psychological scientists Spike W. S.
