News
Highly intelligent people are more likely to ditch old habits for better ideas, study finds
14+ hour, 56+ min ago (240+ words) Study participants were 201 first-year undergraduate university students from the University of Western Australia and 369 participants recruited through Prolific from the UK. The Prolific participants were paid "5 for participation. The average age of participating university students was 20 to 21 years, while the…...
Your sexual orientation appears to have an intriguing impact on how bound you feel by traditional career expectations
1+ day, 14+ hour ago (1068+ words) Societal norms about gender shape many aspects of daily life. From a young age, children observe how different jobs are divided between men and women. They see men overrepresented in fields like science and engineering, while women are highly represented…...
Heavy drinking impairs next-day cognitive functioning in college students
2+ day, 14+ hour ago (627+ words) Young adults between the ages of 18 and 25 report the highest rates of heavy alcohol use among all age groups. It is estimated that more than five million young adults in the United States met the criteria for an alcohol use…...
How learning to read alters the brain's approach to spoken language
1+ week, 6+ day ago (662+ words) Spoken language has been a universal behavior of human beings for hundreds of thousands of years. Reading and writing are relatively recent cultural inventions. Because the brain did not evolve specifically to read, it must repurpose existing visual and linguistic…...
Study finds many college students abandon their free speech ideals under ideological pressure
2+ week, 2+ day ago (507+ words) Conflicts over speech have drawn national media attention and prompted congressional hearings. Universities often function as microcosms of democratic societies, where competing visions of pluralism and tolerance are publicly contested. The debate over speech regulation often centers on two competing…...
New state dyslexia laws show mixed results for student reading achievement
2+ week, 3+ day ago (388+ words) Dyslexia is a learning disability originating from differences in how the human brain processes language. The condition hinders a person's ability to decode words accurately, which makes fluent and effortless reading particularly difficult. Academic researchers estimate that the learning disability…...
Mind wandering enhances the brain's ability to learn hidden patterns, new study suggests
3+ week, 5+ day ago (771+ words) Mind wandering happens when our attention shifts from external tasks to internal thoughts, like reflecting on past events or planning for the weekend. This mental state is typically associated with reduced cognitive performance, including slower reading comprehension and an inability…...
From childhood to adulthood, musicians show small but reliable advantages in sustained attention
4+ week, 10+ hour ago (503+ words) Learning a musical instrument may sharpen attention and vigilance from childhood through adulthood, according to new research published in the British Journal of Psychology. Researchers have long debated whether mentally demanding activities'such as playing chess, learning a language, or practising…...
Women score higher than men on fluid intelligence tests when allowed to express uncertainty
4+ week, 10+ hour ago (1009+ words) The researchers note that the standard format forces people to mask their thought processes. If someone is somewhat confident in an answer but still perceives some risk of being wrong, the rigid format does not capture that nuance. The test…...
Women who out-earn their partners through education face a smaller child penalty
4+ week, 2+ day ago (831+ words) When couples have their first child, women generally experience a long-term drop in their income compared to their male partners. A new analysis shows that this combined loss of relative earnings is noticeably smaller for women who possess more formal…...