Cognition-enhancing drugs, once restricted to the world of science fiction, are now widely available and commonly used. The prevailing assumption is that, in terms of cognitive ability, more is better. But a study in the December 2011 issue of Current Directions in Psychological Science raises an important question: If more More
Get smarter fast! This message sounds like the tagline of a late-night infomercial. But when it comes from the mouth of cognitive psychologist John Jonides of the University of Michigan, it carries more weight. In his William James Fellow Award address at the 2011 APS Convention, Jonides described how proper More
The Wall Street Journal: Recent studies linking increases in adults’ cognitive performance to playing action videogames have sparked a lot of interest. People who are trained to play fast-paced, unpredictable games tend to score higher in the lab on tests of such skills as spotting a fast-moving target, tracking multiple More
msnbc: Pigeons may not be so bird-brained after all, as scientists have found the birds’ ability to understand numbers is on par with that of primates. Previous studies have shown that various animals, from honeybees to chimpanzees, can learn to count when trained with food rewards. In 1998, researchers discovered More
The Miami Herald: Video games that’ll be under millions of Christmas trees may be loads of fun. But three researchers say you shouldn’t expect them to help kids get better grades, improve their concentration or become better drivers. Florida State University psychologist Walter Boot said they found that earlier studies More
New Zealand Herald: There’s more to psychopaths than being murderous. They aren’t all as smart as Hannibal Lecter, or evil, and they can change, say researchers. Victoria University Associate Professor Devon Polaschek, one of four authors of research about to be published in Psychological Science in the Public Interest, says More
