Beautiful Minds

Gorillas Agree: Human Frontal Cortex is Nothing Special

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.

One Alien's Report on the Current State of Education on Earth

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.

Turning Adversity into Creative Growth

"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.

Profiling Serial Creators

In Defense of Working Memory Training

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.

Learning Strategies Outperform IQ in Predicting Achievement

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.

Can You Smell Personality?

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.

From Chess to Dreams: Interview on the Creative Writing Process with Fred Waitzkin

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.

Reasoning Training Increases Brain Connectivity Associated with High-Level Cognition

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.

Introducing Beautiful Minds

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.