Students are rarely taught how to study and often choose inefficient study strategies as a result. In this article I discuss what leads students to choose these strategies and offer alternatives backed by research in cognitive psychology and education.
Parents and teachers of young children often express fears of a child’s language delay. A missing piece of this conversation is the wide variety of language skills at early stages in development that are all within normative ranges.
One of the biggest barriers to people seeking mental health treatment is not knowing how to connect with a therapist. How can you find a therapist? What questions should you ask prospective therapists?
Rejection hurts. While we’d all like to avoid this feeling, broken bonds can be as bad for us as broken bones, if not worse. So while the pain of rejection is undesirable, it may actually be helping us effectively modify our behaviors to navigate the world around us.
There are many methods for studying the brain, from literally slicing it to look at it under a microscope to injecting radioactive tracers into it to see where a particular neurotransmitter is located. Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) is a relatively newer approach to studying the brain, but what is this method, exactly?
Have you ever tried to understand things from another person’s point of view or wished someone would try to see things from your perspective? Perspective-taking research highlights the potential power of engaging in this activity.
We know fake news is bad for us and for society, yet the presence of fake news continues to grow. In this post, I discuss three psychological reasons why we continue to fall victim to fake news.
How can debilitating mental illnesses like schizophrenia survive when evolution favors survival of the fittest? Evolutionary psychologists explore ways in which psychosis or psychosis-risk may have been advantageous for our ancestors.
Early adulthood is a time period in an individual’s life that is characterized by both external and internal changes. What do we know about this stage of development, and why is it important for psychological researchers to continue to explore it?
Medicine and psychology intersect more than you would expect. In particular, tests developed based on psychological concepts are used frequently in clinical evaluations to assess different aspects of a patient’s cognitive abilities. However, there are important limitations to these tests that become evident in cases of severe disease. Research has moved towards using neurophysiological methods to augment behavioral assessments as a way to overcome these limitations.
Overall, memory declines as we age, but prior knowledge may be able to benefit memory in old age.
Fluency is a useful cognitive tool that we use when choosing study strategies, buying products, and assessing information accuracy. Yet, there are times when fluency can mislead us and result in meaningful consequences.
If you aren’t familiar with a procedure called, “Analysis of Variance (ANOVA),” it’s basically used to compare multiple group means against each other and determine if they are different or not. We can determine how similar or dissimilar multiple group …
Despite strong scientific evidence to suggest that teens would benefit greatly from later school start times, California has vetoed a bill that would ensure middle and high schools do not start before 8:30AM. Why?
Growing evidence suggests that it feels good to give. But does giving feel better for some people than others?
Early in life, learning about emotions is an important skill to develop. As early as infancy, the ability to interpret others’ emotions can be used to learn about various aspects of the surrounding world.
Radiation and microgravity can seriously mess with an astronaut’s brain and behavior— see why NASA is focusing on psychology & neuroscience research to advance the journey to Mars.
Neuroscientists have sought to understand the biological nature of memory for decades. In this brief review, I talk about the history of memory research and where the field is now.
In recent news, a large study found a link between coffee consumption and risk for mortality. While the news media has taken off with claims that coffee is the key to longevity, they commit a cardinal sin in science—confusing correlation with causation.
You’ve finished applications, interview cycles, admission processes, and now you’re bound for graduate school. You have three months of free time before you begin one of the greatest maranthon races of your life. So, what should you be doing now to get ahead?
This article was authored by Eric Barajas and Stacy Shaw as part of the 2018 pre-graduate spotlight week. Rampant TV pu …