Study: Shift work chronically impairs cognition

By SharpBrains | November 5, 2014

— Long-Term Shift Work Linked To Impaired Brain Func­tion (Forbes): “Accord­ing to results of a new study, long-term shift work may lead to impaired brain pow­er which could involve cog­ni­tive skills such as think­ing, rea­son­ing and memory…The impact was much greater after a peri­od of 10 or more years of such a work pattern —…

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Want to train your brain? Work as a physician, air traffic controller, financial analyst (or similar)

By SharpBrains | April 7, 2014

Men­tal­ly stim­u­lat­ing jobs keep your mind sharp post-retire­­ment (Tech Times): “If you want to stay sharp in your gold­en years, it’s best to get the hard yards in ear­ly — a new study has found that peo­ple with men­tal­ly demand­ing jobs fare bet­ter in the years after retirement.…Mental acu­ity and mem­o­ry reten­tion was found to be…

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Brain fitness class’ monthly Q&A: Memory, stress, emotions, and more

By Alvaro Fernandez | October 30, 2012

Reg­is­tered par­tic­i­pants in the new e‑course How to Be Your Own Brain Fit­ness Coach can take part in a month­ly online Q&A ses­sion to dis­cuss progress and open ques­tions with the course fac­ul­ty and with fel­low par­tic­i­pants. Below is the tran­script of the Octo­ber 30th Q&A ses­sion, light­ly edit­ed and anonymized. Course Fac­ul­ty (or F):…

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Promoting Mental Agility through Cognitive Control and Mental Representation

By Judith C. Tingley, PhD | July 24, 2012

The words, The Agile Mind cap­tured my atten­tion imme­di­ate­ly. The title con­veyed ener­gy, inno­va­tion, change, bounc­ing on a tram­po­line in my head. I knew that inves­ti­gat­ing the book would be an adven­ture. As soon as the book The Agile Mind by Wilma Kout­staal was in my hands, I explored the 24-page index, look­ing for my favorite topic,…

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Is There a Formula for Smart Thinking?

By Art Markman | May 21, 2012

One day, one of my kids was star­ing at a sim­ple cir­cuit dia­gram. It showed a bat­tery con­nect­ed to a resis­tor and a light bulb. He was doing a home­work prob­lem. The par­tic­u­lar ques­tion that had him stumped asked what would hap­pen to the cur­rent in the cir­cuit if the resis­tor was replaced with another…

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Why Agile Minds Deploy Both Rational and Intuitive Problem-Solving

By Judith C. Tingley, PhD | May 7, 2012

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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