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Scanning the Brain: Scientists Examine the Impact of fMRI Over the Past 20 Years
Understanding the human brain is one of the greatest scientific quests of all time, but the available methods have been very limited until recently. The development of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) -- a tool used to gauge real-time brain activity by measuring changes in blood flow -- opened up an exciting new landscape for exploration. Now, twenty years after the first fMRI study was published, a group of distinguished psychological scientists reflect on the contributions fMRI has made to our understanding of human thought.
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All In The Mind
Australian Broadcasting Radio: Memory – it’s the thread that runs through our lives, but how are our early memories formed? Psychologists are finding that the way we talk with our young children and tell them family stories affects their early memories and their sense of themselves when they become teenagers. And, why we forget most of what we learn when we cram for an exam. Research suggests that repeated study is not as effective for enduring learning, as regular testing of newly acquired knowledge. Read the whole story: Australian Broadcasting Radio
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This Was Supposed to Be My Column for New Year’s Day
The New York Times: For the past 5 years, or maybe it’s more like 10, I’ve been meaning to publish a New Year’s Day column offering a bold resolution for the coming year: “The Power of Positive Procrastination.” Well, Jan. 15 is close enough, especially if you still haven’t gotten around to dealing with this year’s resolutions. And you can stop feeling guilty for procrastinating. Science has come up with a defense of your condition. ... “The secret of my incredible energy and efficiency in getting work done is a simple one,” he wrote.
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Being Bored At Work Could Boost Creativity, Study Suggests
The Huffington Post: We've got some surprising news, workers of the world: Being bored at work could actually be . New research presented at the annual meeting of the British Psychological Society Division of Occupational Psychology shows that being bored at work means more daydreaming time -- leading to an increase in creativity. However, more research is needed to see how exactly this creativity manifests. ... The findings have yet to be published in a peer-reviewed journal, so they should be regarded as preliminary. But still, this is hardly the first time the benefits of daydreaming have been revealed in a study.
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Unshakable Humanity: Altruism and Disaster
In May of 2008, a massive earthquake hit China’s Sichuan province. The earthquake measured 8.0 and could be felt as far away as Pakistan, Vietnam and Russia. The shaking lasted a full two minutes and was followed by some 40,000 aftershocks, triggering hundreds of landslides. By the time the earth stopped moving, almost 70,000 were left dead, with another 18,000 missing and more than 300,000 injured. It was one of the deadliest earthquakes ever recorded. These facts are staggering—incomprehensible really. Even people who have experienced some of nature’s wrath must find such fury and human loss unimaginable.
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Studying for a big exam? Use flash cards, not highlighters
Milwaukee-Wisconsin Journal Sentinel: Students studying for big exams may want to put down their neon highlighters and make some flash cards instead. Some of the most popular study strategies — such as highlighting and rereading — don’t show much promise for improving student learning, according to a new report published in Psychological Science in the Public Interest, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. While 10 learning techniques commonly used by students and researched in the report vary widely in effectiveness, two strategies — practice testing and distributed practice — made the grade, receiving the highest overall rating.
