The Atlantic: Let’s begin with a little experiment: Whatever you do, as you’re reading this short article, don’t think about polar bears. This is, you may have recognized, a classic thought exercise from the writer Fyodor Dostoyevsky. In Winter Notes on Summer Impressions, in a passage that launched a thousand More
The Washington Post: Fyodor Dostoevsky, the 19th Century Russian author, once famously challenged his brother to try out a strange task: Don’t think about a polar bear right now. “Try to pose for yourself this task: not to think of a polar bear, and you will see that the cursed thing More
People searching for something can find it faster if they know what to look for. But new research suggests knowing what not to look for can be just as helpful. Although previous studies concluded that attempting to ignore irrelevant information slows people down, Johns Hopkins University researchers found that when More
Read about the latest research published in Psychological Science: Failure of Intuition When Choosing Whether to Invest in a Single Goal or Split Resources Between Two Goals Alasdair D. F. Clarke and Amelia R. Hunt How do people respond when asked to perform two similar tasks simultaneously? In theory, if both More
Research findings suggest that memory encoding and self-control share and vie for common cognitive resources: inhibiting our response to a stimulus temporarily tips resources away from encoding new memories. More
Aha! Sometimes the solution to a tough problem comes suddenly, in a burst of insight. You may have been painstakingly hashing through the details for a new business plan for days, when suddenly a brilliant, creative solution strikes as you’re taking a shower or staring out the window. New research More
