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Synesthesia: When Ordinary Activities Trigger Extraordinary Sensations
Many of us have had the experience of unusual associations between our senses and our memories. Perhaps a certain smell unexpectedly reminds you of a grandparent, or certain foods evoke memories of old friends. Associations between memories and sensory experience are normal, but about 4% of the population experiences a condition called synesthesia in which…
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Desirable Difficulties in the Classroom
Over the last couple of decades, learning and memory researchers have become increasingly interested in bringing scientific findings out of the lab and into the classroom, where they can be implemented into teaching methods to produce more efficient and effective learning. In a nation mired in an educational crisis, there’s never been a better time…
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Is ADHD a real disorder?
Despite overwhelming scientific evidence that approximately 5 percent of children have a specific deficit in attention compared to children of their same age and sex, many people still question whether ADHD (and some still call it it’s former name: ADD) is a real disorder. A recent article in the New York Times takes on this…
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What Can Effect Sizes Do for You? A Quick Tutorial for a Deeper Understanding of Psychological Research
I listen to a lot of podcasts in which various psychological articles are often discussed (e.g., stuff you should know, radiolab, etc.). As a psychologist, I am often frustrated when a podcast mentions a study’s finding (e.g., having a sister is associated with better self-esteem than having a brother) but then says something like this:…
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Texts, Sex, and Media Freakouts
As I spent a few minutes this morning updating my Twitter, I was alarmed to see a post that a friend of mine had retweeted from The Atlantic: What’s that? Texting no longer only represents a way for teens to ignore their parents at the dinner table and run up the phone bill, it now…
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Childhood Sexual Assault: Impacts are broad, but not for all victims?
Psychologists often rely on grouping participants together based on shared characteristics (e.g., are girls better than boy in reading ability). The goal is to broadly understand the relationships between potential causes and effects, and, ideally learn from them. In the first example above, perhaps reading interventions targeting boys may be an effect if the study…
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What makes us Happy?
According to Dan Gilbert, the author of Stumbling on Happiness, research indicates that it’s not children. In a recent talk at the APA convention, Dr. Gilbert told the crowd of psychologists and psychiatrists that 20 years of research has shown that people without children are happier than those with children. And people with young children…
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Mind-reading, lie-detection and telekinesis with fMRI and EEG – Science fact and fiction
In the last few years, fMRI and EEG have made it into the popular press as tools for reading minds (here, here, here, here and here for a sample), lie-detection (here, here and here), and telekinesis – controlling/ moving objects with our thoughts – (here, here, here, and here). I think there was even a…
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The Origins of Mental Disorders
The recent article in the New York Times outlining research on the preschool-age depression has raised public interest in the origins of mental disorders. Many non-scholars and even some psychologists are skeptical about the emergence of psychological problems in very young children. The stability of temperament (personalities traits such as extraversion and introversion) is now…
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Treatments for ADHD – and the forgotten role of motivation
Research on the treatments for ADHD suggest that even the most effective treatments may not be sufficient for improving outcomes for children with ADHD diagnoses. Current treatments have a predominately person-biased approach to conceptualizing and treating the disorder. For example, the largest study conducted to assess the efficacy of ADHD interventions pitted medication and psychosocial…