Description: When I first started teaching introductory psychology a few decades ago I used to tell students that they had most of the largest number of brain neurons they would ever have at the time they were born. After their birth the number of brain cells dropped due to things like attrition and pruning (neurons… Read more »
Posts Categorized: Research Methods
Video Games, Social Media and Mental Health: Research Debates on Screen Time Continue
Description: The debates and the research focused upon the impacts of video gaming and social media use on developing children and youth are heated and ongoing. The primary difficulty in sorting out the effects of video gaming and social media use is tied up in the comprehensive nature of their uptake in the population. As… Read more »
The Psychology of Covid: Being A Guinea Pig
Description: If I asked you to ponder what it is like to be a Guinea Pig, I suspect you would not actually start to reflect on what it might be like to be small and furry. Rather, you would be more likely to contemplate what is would be like to be a participant in a… Read more »
No Longer Need to See Red Over Seeing Red
Description: Here is a very simple and complex question. Do you see red like I see red? Simple, right? Look at the picture below. The garment and the umbrella are red right? So, what is complicated? Well, yes, we seem to use the same label for our sensory experiences when we see things like the… Read more »
Psychology of COVID-19: Contact Tracing and Human Memory
Description: Think back over the past 10 days and then itemize everything you did, everywhere you went, everyone you saw, interacted with, for how long and how far apart were you during that interaction? Include every place or situation you encountered over that same period that involved groups of people. How many people? How close… Read more »
Breakthroughs and Discoveries in Psychological Science in 2020
Description: How would you decide which Psychological research articles were the 10 most important of 2020? Well, you could read a lot and come up with your own list but that would not be very scientific would it? So, what would you use for metrics? Well, how about the impact articles have on society in… Read more »
Aging Dogs as Models of Age-Related Human Personality Change
Description: What can dogs tell us about the nature and extent of changes in the human personality with age? Well, I bet I know what you are thinking: People are like their dogs so if we observe people’s dogs through time, we will see signs of how their owner’s personalities may be changing with age…. Read more »
Is it Exercise or Nature That is Good For You? Or is it Both?
Description: Imagine you volunteer for a research study. As part of the study you are shown a pair of pictures (two men or two women) and you are asked to pick the one that is the most attractive. After you make your choice you are handed the picture you chose and asked to explain why… Read more »
Choice Blindness: How Well Do You Really Know What You Are Doing?
Description: Imagine you volunteer for a research study. As part of the study you are shown a pair of pictures (two men or two women) and you are asked to pick the one that is the most attractive. After you make your choice you are handed the picture you chose and asked to explain why… Read more »
The Psychology of Covid-19: Psychological Reactions to the Pandemic
Description: As you may or may not have noticed, I (Mike Boyes) have been posting discussions of and links to articles on the Psychology of Covid-19 since March 2020 (search Covid on this site to see the results). Recently we are starting to see posted, peer-reviewed research articles presenting studies that wee conceived, conducted, and… Read more »
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