Does All Research Have a Point? (Should It?)
I’m a big fan of scientific and behavioral research. It’s interesting and useful and fun to read (well, not fun fun) and I believe it usually matters even when it doesn’t seem to. Even so, sometimes I...
View ArticleWomen in the Sciences: Fire Up Your Inner Dilbert
Dilbert lives. The socially awkward engineer is turning up in research labs—and not only as the guy in the lab coat. Research out of Cornell University and published in the journal of the International...
View ArticleMy Brain is Tired…Whatever That Means
My brain is tired. My work as a freelance writer requires a lot of thinking. Not only a lot of thinking, but a lot of thinking about a lot of different subjects. Research too. And then, after I’ve...
View ArticleThe Language of Dementia
New research from Penn State and the Benjamin Rose Institute on Aging finds that caregivers of people with dementia are not listening to what the people they care for want. The researchers interviewed...
View ArticleDaydreaming As Our Default Mode (And Why That’s Not Great)
Last night, my yoga and meditation teacher mentioned her surprise at how much easier meditation gets over time. She no longer has to work nearly as hard as she once did, she said, to reach a...
View ArticleHow Pain Ate My Brain
The other day I learned that I’ve been walking around for the better part of a decade with a dislocated toe. I knew something was wrong. I’d had it X-rayed and the doctor said it looked like I’d jammed...
View ArticleFear of Parties: One Good Reason
"Face" by Joyce J. Scott/Yale University Art Gallery New research finds a small but significant correlation between social anxiety and ability to recognize faces. Yes. Oh yes. I don’t have severe...
View ArticleGood Stuff I’ve Learned In A Year Of Real World Research
This blog celebrated its first anniversary on January 1, so I am therefore compelled (it’s the law) to reflect on the past year. Writing Real World Research has been fun and also a lot of work. I read...
View ArticleImagery and the Mind and Mindfulness
I’ve only just started reading the new book by fellow PyschCentral blogger Elisha Goldstein, and I’ve already found something useful. Goldstein is a psychologist in private practice, and his excellent...
View ArticleLooking at the Negative (Spaces) In Our World
Elisha Goldstein’s book, The Now Effect, has sent my brain spinning in yet another direction. The anecdote: A professor stood before a philosophy class holding an empty jar. As the students took their...
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