You’ve probably heard about these Brain Training games. Do they really help you to keep your mind sharp? Will they prevent cognitive decline or slow the effects of alzheimer’s disease? In this episode I review some recent studies on the effectiveness (or lack thereof) of these popular games.
Everyone can picture one of those phrenology heads with personality traits drawn into different sections of the cranium. Was there anything to that? Well, not exactly. However, with the use of MRI scans researchers today may have located where certain personality traits lie in your brain. Travel with me into a 3D brain and let’s find out where your personality may lie.
There are many reasons why it is difficult to lose weight, but have you considered how supernormal stimuli might be one of them? In this episode I discuss some of the ideas in the books Waistland and Supernormal Stimuli by Dierdre Barrett. Is it possible that the old saying Everything in Moderation might just be wrong? And will Small Changes really help you to get in shape or are radical changes really the way to go?
For some reason we believe that our memories are accurate. They are far from it. What we remember is a hodge-podge, a patchwork of images, stories, and bits and pieces from our past. In this episode I describe some of the very interesting research showing how our memories can be manipulated in surprising ways.
Would you be surprised if I told you that your memories of the attacks on September 11, 2001 are inaccurate? How much of what you remember of that day or of other Flashbulb Memories actually happened? Where were you, for example, when the Challenger disaster occurred? Or when Princess Diana died? Join me as I explore the research that reveals how inaccurate our memories are (no matter how confident we feel). And by the way, was President Bush involved in a conspiracy over the events of September 11? Let’s find out.
What do your dog and Shakespeare have in common? Well, they both use a Theory of Mind. Join me for this video episode in which I look at this fascinating idea of theory of mind and the unique and fun research that has been done around it. And yes, you might pick up an idea of how to test your dog to see if your dog can actually read your mind.
What does the movie Shrek have to do with labeling, the DSM-V and the self-fulfilling prophecy? In this episode I take a close look at the well-known Rosenhan study. This was the study in which “pseudopatients” pretend to hear voices and on the basis of this they get admitted to psychiatric centers.
In this video episode I show you 10 of what I consider to be the best psychology apps in the app store. There are a lot of apps out there and many are not so good, but in this episode I pick out what I consider to be credible therapy apps, excellent mobile mind mapping tools, relaxation apps, games based on Gestalt principles of psychology, and some of the best 3 dimensional ways to look at the brain.
Have you ever deliberately replaced small words with bigger ones in order to sound more intelligent? Guess what – it usually doesn’t work. In a series of studies Daniel Oppenheimer showed that writers actually came across as less intelligent when they used big words where smaller ones would have worked just as well.
Have you ever been less than truthful in an email? Or perhaps a little more blunt or emotional than you might have been if you delivered your message in person? Why is it that people can sometimes be so mean in their online comments?