So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish — Douglas Adams In a humbling moment for our species, the following big news has just been published: When it comes to the frontal lobes, we’re not so special after all. For years, scientists have attempted to pinpoint the bits of our brain that might help explain our [...]

I don’t know if you’ve heard the big news, but we’ve been recently visited by an alien. His name is Cretal, and he is from the planet Zoran. He was sent over to Earth to study humans and how they achieve personal contentment and happiness in life. Cretal arrived without any knowledge of the labels we [...]

“I create – in order not to cry.” — Painter Paul Klee There’s little doubt that trauma can be immensely painful, often leaving deep emotional and psychological scars long after the stressful experience has passed. But can there be a silver lining? In recent years, psychologists have become increasingly interested in the positive life changes [...]

Every single day, all across the globe, extraordinarily creative and talented students sit in our classrooms bored out of their minds. These budding innovators may differ drastically in what particular domain captivates their attention, whether it’s science and engineering, architecture and design, arts, music and entertainment, business and finance, law, or health care. Nevertheless, as Richard Florida [...]

One minute we’re being told that brain training makes you smarter, and the next minute we’re told it’s all bogus. Confused? I don’t blame you. The research literature on brain training is confusing and even sometimes contradictory. This is the way of science. I believe, however, that there is hope in making sense of things if the field and the [...]

In the 1960s, the legendary psychologist Albert Bandura rejected the view that learning is passive. Instead he emphasized the importance of the active use of learning strategies. Today, Bandura’s legacy lives on, and has been extended in exciting new directions. Grounded in Bandura’s pioneering research, in 1986 Barry Zimmerman and Martinez Pons published a paper that [...]

First impressions matter. This may not come as much of a surprise, but just how quickly we form impressions, and which cues we use to make such rapid judgements may very much surprise you. Take the face. Superstar social psychologist Nalini Ambady (**see below) and her colleagues found that judgements of traits relating to power (competence, dominance, [...]

In 1984, Fred Waitzkin published Searching for Bobby Fischer, the story of three years in the lives of Fred and his chess prodigy son, Josh Waitzkin. The book became an internationally acclaimed bestseller. Five years later, Paramount released the movie version of Searching for Bobby Fischer, which has become a cult classic. Waitzkin also wrote Mortal Games (1993), [...]

A number of studies across various domains– from juggling to taxi navigation to meditation to music to motor learning to processing speed– demonstrate the importance of experience on patterns of neural connectivity. Finally, the cognitive ability domain is catching up. In recent years, neuroscientists have discovered a large-scale brain network critical for novel and complex goal-directed [...]

When I was a kid, I was diagnosed with a learning disability. By the age of three, I had already suffered from twenty-one ear infections. As a result, I developed “Central Auditory Processing Disorder,” which made it very difficult for me to process auditory input in real time. For much of my youth, I felt as [...]