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The New Phrenology?
Phrenology was the intellectual rage of 19th century America. Edgar Allan Poe and Walt Whitman each incorporated bits of the popular personality theory into his works, and Herman Melville went so far as to make
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Increases in Brain’s Motivation can result in Diminished Performance
Choking under pressure affects us all. Psychologists are very interested in this phenomenon, because choking sabotages performance not only in big sports contests but in the classroom and workplace as well. A study published in Psychological
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This is Your Brain on Politics
With over a year of campaigning before the general election, voters should be able to tap into lots of information when they make their decisions in the voting booth. But it turns out there’s a lot more going on when we step behind the curtain to cast our ballot.
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New Study Suggests we Remember the Bad Times Better than the Good
Do you remember exactly where you were when you learned of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks? Your answer is probably yes, and researchers are beginning to understand why we remember events that carry negative emotional
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Brain Shows Humans Break Down Events into Smaller Units.
In order to comprehend the continuous stream of cacophonies and visual stimulation that battle for our attention, humans will breakdown activities into smaller, more digestible chunks, a phenomenon that psychologists describe as “event structure perception.”
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Some Cautions About Jumping on the Brain-Scan Bandwagon
My interest in neuroscience and neuroimaging is primarily as a teacher and textbook author. Like any teacher, I want students to appreciate the astonishing progress being made by neuroscientists. But I also want students (and