Why working memory matters in the knowledge age: study

We use work­ing mem­o­ry to remem­ber direc­tions while dri­ving or someone’s name and phone num­ber. With­out it, we would be lit­er­al­ly lost; we wouldn’t know how to get to that impor­tant meet­ing and would for­get impor­tant con­tacts. Work­ing mem­o­ry is crit­i­cal for many activities.

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News on physical, cognitive and emotional fitness

Nice week­end read­ing mate­r­i­al — recent news reiforc­ing emerg­ing trends on phys­i­cal, cog­ni­tive and emo­tion­al fit­ness, but with new twists. Fit teens could be smarter teens “Researchers from Swe­den and USC exam­ined data on 1.2 mil­lion Swedish men born between 1950 and 1976 who also enlist­ed for the coun­try’s manda­to­ry mil­i­tary ser­vice. They looked at…

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Update: Public Libraries as Health Clubs for the Brain

Here you have the July edi­tion of our month­ly newslet­ter cov­er­ing cog­ni­tive health and brain fit­ness top­ics. Please remem­ber that you can sub­scribe to receive this Newslet­ter by email, using the box at the top of this page. Pub­lic libraries have long offered the pub­lic more than books. And now, recent demo­graph­ic and sci­en­tif­ic trends are…

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Can You Outsmart Your Genes? An Interview with Author Richard Nisbett

While the debate over intel­li­gence rages on many fronts, the bat­tle over the impor­tance of hered­i­ty rages loud­est. It’s easy to see why. If the camp that argues intel­li­gence is 75 to 85 per­cent genet­i­cal­ly deter­mined is cor­rect, then we’re faced with some tough ques­tions about the role of edu­ca­tion. If intel­li­gence is improved very…

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Brain Scientists Identify Links between Arts, Learning

Arts edu­ca­tion influ­ences learn­ing and oth­er areas of cog­ni­tion and may deserve a more promi­nent place in schools, accord­ing to a wave of recent neu­ro­science research.One recent study found that chil­dren who receive music instruc­tion for just 15 months show strength­ened con­nec­tions in musi­cal­ly rel­e­vant brain areas and per­form bet­ter on asso­ci­at­ed tasks, com­pared with…

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