-
Why a Cognitive Scientist Put a Head Cam on His Baby
When Luna was seven months old, she began wearing, at the behest of her scientist father, a hot-pink helmet topped with a camera that would, for about an hour at a time, capture everything she saw, heard, and said. Her dad, Brenden Lake, is a cognitive scientist at New York University, where he thinks about better ways to train artificial intelligence. At home, he trains human intelligence, by which I just mean that he’s a dad. On a recent Sunday morning, he held up a robot puppet and asked Luna, who was meting out her wooden toys, “That’s for robot?” “Oh, goodness!” he added in a silly Muppet voice. ... That said, AI models could also inspire new ideas about how children learn.
-
The Calming Power of Rituals
Have you ever tried telling yourself to calm down—perhaps while half-panicked, staring at yourself in the mirror of a restroom next to the conference room where you’re leading a meeting in two minutes…one minute…? Or have you ever suggested to your irate significant other, “You need to calm down”? How did that work out? It might seem as if a straightforward reminder should be effective. We are surrounded by motivational mantras (“Keep Calm and Carry On”) aimed at keeping us placid. But those efforts are trying to suppress a strong human mechanism known as arousal—a psychological and physical state of high tension that includes the activation of the limbic and sympathetic nervous systems.
-
How to Build Your Network at Professional Events
The April 2024 Professional Development workshop hosted experts who explored how to prepare for the APS Annual Convention in May and provided tips and tricks for networking and building relationships in the field.
-
Discussing politics even with a disagreement in opinion can lead to good conversation
New research pointed out avoiding talking about politics because a disagreement can be unnecessary. The common expectations of tension or discomfort from these conversations may not be the reality and can go better than expected.
-
Parental Engagement Enhances Children’s Therapy Experience and Outcomes
Podcast: What methods effectively alleviate children’s anxiety? How do parents influence the treatment process? Can parents positively affect the treatment outcomes? Under the Cortex explores.
-
Why Labeling Some People as ‘Gifted’ Actually Hurts Us All
ne of the greatest musical geniuses of our time is Itzhak Perlman—but carrying the weight of that title as a child wasn’t easy. The virtuoso violinist describes his early musical education as the “triangle of hell,” with pressure from (and between) his teacher and his parents. Their motto: do as I say. When Perlman got to Juilliard, he was shocked when he was encouraged by his new teacher to be more expressive and self-reflective. Now, in the program for young musicians that he runs with his wife Toby, he uses a similar style with his own students, encouraging each to become the best version of themselves. ... Our intentions in labeling kids as gifted are largely positive.
