Update: Test your stress level with this fun brain teaser

— Time for Sharp­Brains’ July 2014 e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing a wealth of thought-pro­­vok­ing insights, sci­ence reports…and this fun brain teas­er to deter­mine your stress lev­el. New think­ing: Why “dis­or­ders of the brain” deserve at least equal atten­tion as car­dio­vas­cu­lar dis­eases and can­cer Pre­lim­i­nary Agen­da of the 2014 Sharp­Brains Vir­tu­al Sum­mit (Octo­ber 28–30th) Debunk­ing Myers-Brig­gs per­son­al­i­ty test How to remember…

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Brain teaser to test your cognitive abilities…and biases

— Please con­sider Lin­da, a 31-year-old woman, sin­gle and bright. When she was a stu­dent, in high school and in col­lege too, she was deeply involved in social jus­tice issues, and also par­tic­i­pated in envi­ron­men­tal protests. Which is more prob­a­ble about Linda’s occu­pa­tion today?

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Understanding, and breaking, our cognitive biases

5 Coun­ter­in­tu­itive Habits Of Tru­ly Authen­tic Lead­ers (Forbes): “When you hold a cer­tain belief or uncon­scious­ly decide on some­thing, you’ll have a ten­den­cy to focus on and favor infor­ma­tion that sup­ports your belief or deci­sion, dis­card­ing any­thing that con­tra­dicts it. 

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Why Agile Minds Deploy Both Rational and Intuitive Problem-Solving

A rare aha moment in 2011 set me chas­ing new prob­lem-solv­ing research. The study Ratio­nal Ver­sus Intu­itive Prob­lem-Solv­ing: How Think­ing ‘Off the Beat­en Path’ Can Stim­u­late Cre­ativ­i­ty pub­lished in Psy­chol­o­gy of Aes­thet­ics, Cre­ativ­i­ty, and the Arts stung me out of a spot of intel­lec­tu­al arro­gance. From my per­spec­tive, John Dewey’s 19th cen­tu­ry step-wise 

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Daniel Kahneman on the Need to Think Slow (at times)

So Much for Snap Deci­sions (The Wall Street Jour­nal): — “How is it that so many peo­ple make deci­sions that, from their per­spec­tive, seem so right—and turn out so wrong? Blame it, in part, on think­ing “fast.” — “On some occa­sions, when the stakes are high, exam­in­ing the evi­dence more systematically—especially the evi­dence that makes…

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Preparing Society for the Cognitive Age (Frontiers in Neuroscience article)

(Edi­tor’s note: this arti­cle belongs to the excel­lent May 2009 spe­cial issue on Aug­ment­ing Cog­ni­tion at sci­en­tif­ic jour­nal Fron­tiers in Neu­ro­science. The arti­cle, an indus­try overview, is repro­duced here with autho­riza­tion by the Fron­tiers Research Foun­da­tion) Prepar­ing Soci­ety for the Cog­ni­tive Age By Alvaro Fer­nan­dez Ground­break­ing cog­ni­tive neu­ro­science research has occurred over the last 20 years — without…

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