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Happy Monday Morning!
Mondays. The hardest part about Mondays is waking up in the morning. Kudos to those to feel otherwise. Getting back to the rhythm of our early weekday start is typically more difficult for people who are naturally night owls. Each of us has a unique circadian rhythm and are characterized as early, intermediate or late…
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There is a green% chance you will read this post.
Recently The Onion posted this tongue-in-cheek article regarding synesthesia. For those of you who may not know, synesthesia is a neurological phenomenon in which people experience cross-sensory perceptions. Fellow PIA blogger Emma Geller has written a fabulous primer to the world of synesthesia, located here, but the quick-and-dirty version is that synesthetes have associations between senses…
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Graduate Program Interviews: Cognitive Psychology
So you applied to PhD programs in Psychology in the fall, with some kind of interest or focus in cognitive psychology – memory, attention, perception, thinking, learning, cognitive neuroscience, computational modeling of cognition, etc. Now interviews are coming up. Want to get the inside scoop on the interviewing/decision process? What questions to ask, what to…
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Interview Tips for Students Applying to PhD Programs in Psychology
Preparing for interviews for a PhD program in psychology can be very stressful as well as very exciting. This is likely the first time that you will be interacting face to face with multiple professors and graduate students from the program you are applying for, and it is important to make a good impression. It…
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Reinforcement vs Punishment: from Animal Training to Theology
Ever felt “positively punished” when your dog-trainer or psychologist inundate you with these lingo?
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Celine Dion: “The Power of Love” or the Power of Dopamine?
Celine Dion I’m not sure about you, but when I hear Celine Dion belting out the last chorus of “My Heart Will Go On”, I seem to disconnect from reality and become totally immersed in a wave of emotion (one might even say that it’s a wave strong enough to sink a cruise ship). Although…
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Gorillas, babies, and the importance of looking
Vvisual behaviors sculpt our potentially overwhelming environment into meaningful experiences and the importance of studying visual social attention among individuals with autism
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Psychology Classics: Wason Selection Task (Part II)
This post is the second in a series on the Wason selection task (Part I), and part of our ongoing series exploring classic experiments and theories in the history of psychological research.In Part I of my series of posts on the Wason selection task, I detailed the development of the task (Wason, 1966), the discovery of the…
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Multitasking Video Game Improves Cognition in 79-year-olds!
Today, Nature published evidence that training on a multitasking video game improved older adults’ cognitive ability beyond the scope of the game to untrained aspects of cognition. The article featured a four-year research led by Drs. Adam Gazzaley and Joaquin Anguera at UCSF. They utilised a relatively simple video game, NeuroRacer to train older adults on multitasking. NeuroRacer requires participants to drive a cartoon car, and to respond…
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Improve creativity by working in a coffee shop
There seems to be an endless search for how to be more productive and creative in a shorter amount of time. Books, websites, and seminars preach all different techniques to accomplish more with less. The company Coffitivity is trying to do just that, but in a unique way.