rational

Marshmallow Test with a twist: 3- and 4‑year-olds kids display more self-control when their reputation is at stake

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Chil­dren Will Wait to Impress Others—Another Twist on the Clas­sic Marsh­mal­low Test (Asso­ci­a­tion for Psy­cho­log­i­cal Science):

If you asked peo­ple to name a famous psy­chol­o­gy study, the “marsh­mal­low test” would prob­a­bly come out near the top of the list. In this task, young chil­dren are told they can imme­di­ate­ly get a small reward (one marsh­mal­low) or wait to get a big­ger reward (two marsh­mal­lows) [Read more…] about Marsh­mal­low Test with a twist: 3- and 4‑year-olds kids dis­play more self-con­trol when their rep­u­ta­tion is at stake

Debunking Myers-Briggs personality test: Can we pigeon­hole people?

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Myers-BriggsWhy the Myers-Brig­gs test is total­ly mean­ing­less (Vox):

“The Myers-Brig­gs Type Indi­ca­tor is prob­a­bly the most wide­ly used per­son­al­i­ty test in the world…The only prob­lem? The test is com­plete­ly mean­ing­less… [Read more…] about Debunk­ing Myers-Brig­gs per­son­al­i­ty test: Can we pigeon­hole people?

Why Agile Minds Deploy Both Rational and Intuitive Problem-Solving

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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 [Read more…] about Why Agile Minds Deploy Both Ratio­nal and Intu­itive Problem-Solving

Brain Fitness Update: Why We Need Walking Book Clubs

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Here you are have the twice-a-month newslet­ter with our most pop­u­lar blog posts. Please brainremem­ber that you can sub­scribe to receive this Newslet­ter by email, sim­ply by sub­mit­ting your email at the top of this page.

News

CNN: Aging boomers fuel ‘brain fit­ness’ explo­sion: An excel­lent arti­cle via Asso­ci­at­ed Press explor­ing why the brain fit­ness mar­ket passed a tip­ping point in 2007 and pre­dict­ing future trends build­ing on our mar­ket report.

Brain Age: Great Game, Wrong Con­cept: One rea­son why we believe the field will keep grow­ing is because we are see­ing more tools avail­able than ever before to assess and train a vari­ety of cog­ni­tive skills. The bad news (is this real­ly news?) is that we should­n’t be expect­ing mag­ic pills and that “brain age” is a fic­tion. [Read more…] about Brain Fit­ness Update: Why We Need Walk­ing Book Clubs

Why Smart Brains Make Stupid Decisions

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It hap­pens. Often.

Why?

We just secured an inter­view with Ori Braf­man, co-author of Sway: The Irre­sistible Pull of Irra­tional Behav­ior (Dou­ble­day Busi­ness, 2008), to dis­cuss our Dark Side (well, he calls it “dif­fer­ent hid­den forces” and “psy­cho­log­i­cal undercurrents”).

While read­ing some reviews about his book, I par­tic­u­lar­ly enjoyed find­ing, after the usu­al impres­sive long col­lec­tion of endorse­ments, this “dis­claimer”:

*DISCLAIMER: If you decide to buy this book because of these endorse­ments, you just got swayed. One of the psy­cho­log­i­cal forces you’ll read about in Sway is our ten­den­cy to place a high­er val­ue on opin­ions from peo­ple in posi­tions of promi­nence, pow­er, or author­i­ty. (But you should still buy the book.)

[Read more…] about Why Smart Brains Make Stu­pid Decisions

Encephalon: Briefing the Next US President on Neuroscience & Psychology

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Dear Mr or Mrs Next US President,

We are glad to wel­come you to our blog car­ni­val. After a short hia­tus, Encephalon is backScience Debate 2008 and gath­er­ing steam. We have pre­pared this “revival” edi­tion just for you, so you can be well informed and impress us all dur­ing the upcom­ing Sci­encede­bate 2008.

With­out fur­ther ado, let’s pro­ceed to the ques­tions posed by 24 blog­gers on neu­ro­science and psy­chol­o­gy issues. We hope they pro­vide, at the very least, good men­tal stim­u­la­tion for you and your advisors.

Big Ques­tions

Do I deserve to vote even if I don’t have Free Will? (Marc at Neu­ro­sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly Challenged).

If cul­ture sculpts our brains, what can our brains do to refine our cul­ture first? (Stephanie at Brains On Purpose).

Is God more than a fly­ing brain? (Jes­si­ca at bioephemera).

Is Your brain real­ly read­ing This? (Pete at Brain Hammer).

A Few Intru­sive Questions 

Do you play any musi­cal instru­ment? (Megan at SharpBrains).

[Read more…] about Encephalon: Brief­ing the Next US Pres­i­dent on Neu­ro­science & Psychology