cognitive science

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Toddlers' Sense of Justice Surprises Researchers

They're more interested in making things right than punishing wrongdoers

(Newser) - Preschool justice may be more developed than previously thought. So finds new research published in the journal Current Biology , where 3- and 5-year-olds observed two of four different scenes involving puppets, toys, and cookies. It turns out that not only did the kids sort out pretty quickly whether the "...

Older Adults Think Better in the Morning
Older Adults Think Better
in the Morning
STUDY SAYS
Aug 12, 2014 2:40 PM CDT

Older Adults Think Better in the Morning

People 60 to 82 did best on cognitive tasks before 10:30am

(Newser) - Older adults who want to take a crack at the Sunday Times crossword or try a Food Network recipe may want to do it first thing in the morning. A small study by Canadian researchers and published in the journal Psychology and Aging found that adults between the ages of...

Why Overheard Calls Are So Annoying

Our brains hate hearing 'halfalogues'

(Newser) - Does hearing people blab away on their cell phones make you want to scream? You're not alone—and now scientists know why. Hearing someone talk on his phone is, in fact, more annoying than overhearing a conversation, according to new study published in Psychological Science . Turns out our brains can't...

Older Women's Memory Better Than Men's
Older Women's Memory Better Than Men's
battle of the sexes
Mar 12, 2010 5:21 AM CST

Older Women's Memory Better Than Men's

50-year old women trump men at verbal recall, research shows

(Newser) - A middle-aged woman may have a better memory than a middle-aged man, a new study suggests. UK researchers asked men and women aged 50 to remember 10 words and to recall them two minutes and five minutes later. Women scored 5% higher than men, on average, in the first test...

Real 'Thinking Cap' May Not Be So Far Off

Magnetic pulse boosts learning, study shows; headgear next?

(Newser) - A magnetic pulse directed at a certain area of the brain may enhance learning and memory, the Telegraph reports. Canadian researchers subjected volunteers to a test that required they track a dot moving on a computer screen with a joystick, and volunteers who received stimulation fared much better.

Poor Kids' Stress Harms the Brain, Chance of Success

Elevated stress hormones early can lead to lack of working memory later

(Newser) - Chronic stress caused by growing up poor appears to impair a developing child’s working memory, the Washington Post reports, pointing to another link between childhood poverty and lessened long-term success. While environmental and experiential factors—such as having fewer toys and more exposure to lead—likely affect the achievement...

Study Links Video Games to Improved Vision

Action games improve optics and brain's response

(Newser) - Adults can apparently improve their eyesight by playing action video games, a treatment less painful—for some, at least—than corrective lenses or eye surgery, according to researchers. Scientists compared study subjects who played the action games Call of Duty and Unreal Tournament 2004 to a group who played the...

Long Work Hours Weaken Mental Skills

Putting in 55 or more hours per week hurts memory, reasoning

(Newser) - Working long hours may weaken mental skills, the BBC reports. Researchers administered a series of reasoning and memory tests to 2,214 British civil servants and found that those working more than 55 hours a week did significantly worse than those who worked around 40. The effect was cumulative, meaning...

Single Nerve Cell Can Hold a Memory: Study

New findings may shed light on addiction, memory disorders

(Newser) - Individual neurons in the brain can hang on to memories for a minute or longer, a new study finds. Something like a computer’s temporary random access memory (RAM), this working memory is what allows you to keep a phone number in your head for a few seconds, then forget...

Brain Looks Beyond Eyes to Recognize Faces: Scientists

New research shows that eyebrows, noses are key to distinguishing people

(Newser) - Want to make yourself hard to recognize? Get a nose job and shave your eyebrows, say facial-recognition experts, who have yet to fully understand—or agree upon—how we “see” or “read” faces. Psychologists and neuroscientists, fueled by the need to quickly and correctly identify people in the...

Researchers Push 'Brain Steroids' for All

Future drugs could boost job, classroom performance

(Newser) - Healthy adults should be able to take brain-boosting drugs for a competitive advantage at work or on an exam, researchers say in a provocative paper. Seven authors say ethical questions about cognitive-enhancement pills are both warranted and imminent, and that such medicinal aid is no less moral than caffeine consumption,...

'Number Sense' Predicts Math Success: Study

Ability to guess group size linked to algebra, calculus skill

(Newser) - The skill of estimating group size at a glance is directly linked to success in higher forms of math like algebra and calculus, reports the Washington Post. A new study found that students with better “number sense”—the ability to quickly and accurately guess numbers in a group—...

It's Official: Bikinis Make Men Stupid

Scientists say sex drive trumps common sense

(Newser) - Men make dumb decisions when ogling bikini-clad beauties—conventional wisdom, sure, but now there's some science behind it. Belgian researchers found that men bombarded with sexy images have a definite drop-off in cognitive skills when compared with those who gaze at landscapes, reports MSNBC. The experiment supports earlier findings that...

Missing Protein May Explain 'Rain Man'

Brain deficiency could play role in creating autistic savants

(Newser) - The absence of a certain brain protein may play a role in the development of “autistic savants”—patients who exhibit the socio-cognitive impairments of autism but possess exceptional aptitude in highly specific areas, Live Science reports. Researchers found mice lacking the Shank1 protein, used for building synapses, learned...

Caught My Yawn? Aren't You Sweet
Caught My Yawn? Aren't You Sweet
Sep 11, 2007 3:19 AM CDT

Caught My Yawn? Aren't You Sweet

Study discovers contagious yawning is sign of empathy

(Newser) - If you yawn when someone nearby does, it may mean you're an empathetic person, a new study has found. Research shows that infectious yawning is a psychological phenomenon, limited to humans and some of their ape relatives, and that those more likely to "catch" yawns appear to be more...

Toddlers Learn Language Slowly and Quickly

Kids stockpile simple words in buildup to vocab explosion

(Newser) - Toddlers learn to speak by simply using small, familiar words to acquire harder ones, new research says, throwing a curveball at scientists who assumed a more complex cognitive system. Youngsters can rapidly go from spouting babble to intelligible chatter as long as their words have varying levels of difficulty, Scientific ...

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