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How Couples Recover After an Argument Stems From Their Infant Relationships
When studying relationships, psychological scientists have often focused on how couples fight. But how they recover from a fight is important, too. According to a new study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, couples’ abilities to bounce back from conflict may depend on what both partners were like as infants. Researchers at the University of Minnesota have been following a cohort of people since before they were born, in the mid-1970s. When the subjects were about 20 years old, they visited the lab with their romantic partners for testing.
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Being bilingual may delay Alzheimer’s and boost brain power
The Guardian: Learning a second language and speaking it regularly can improve your cognitive skills and delay the onset of dementia, according to researchers who compared bilingual individuals with people who spoke only one language. Their study suggests that bilingual speakers hold Alzheimer's disease at bay for an extra four years on average compared with monoglots. School-level language skills that you use on holiday may even improve brain function to some extent. Read the whole story: The Guardian
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An Infant’s Refined Tongue
ScienceNOW: Your baby's language skills may surprise you. Before they speak—before they even crawl—infants can distinguish between two languages they've never heard before just by looking at the face of a speaker. And if they're raised in a bilingual household, they retain this ability for a long time, according to research presented here today at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (which publishes ScienceNOW). Read the whole story: ScienceNOW
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People who speak two languages are ‘better at multi-tasking and less likely to develop Alzheimer’s’
The Daily Mail: Learning a second language boosts your brain power and can protect against Alzheimer's disease, scientists say. New research has shown that bilingual people do better in mental challenges and are more skilled at multi-tasking than those who have just one tongue. They also develop symptoms of dementia an average of four or five years later. Read the whole story: The Daily Mail
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‘Talk Therapy’ Can Alter Brain Activity, Research Shows
Bloomberg (HealthDay): Psychotherapy triggers changes in the brains of people with social anxiety disorder, finds a new study. Medication and psychotherapy are used to treat people with social anxiety, a common disorder in which people experience overwhelming fear of interacting with others and of being harshly judged. But there's been far less research on the neurological effects of psychotherapy (talk therapy) than on medication-induced brain changes. Read the whole story: Bloomberg (HealthDay)
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Psychology and the Law: A Special Issue of Current Directions in Psychological Science
Legal systems are necessary in any functioning society. Centuries ago, people realized that the only way to maintain a peaceful community was to develop a firm set of rules—laws—to punish transgressors. As laws have continued to evolve in societies around the world, psychological scientists have begun to investigate the psychological basis of many aspects of legal systems. A new special issue of Current Directions in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, presents the current state of research on psychology and law.
