Archive for April, 2007

What a person says is not necessarily an indication of what that person knows because speech is motivated by social circumstances and the desire to influence the listener. Two researchers at the University of Missouri-Columbia have applied this principle to local environmental knowledge by indigenous peoples and are urging other scientists to incorporate more observation and skepticism into their studies.

“We… Continue reading

University of Portsmouth scientists have developed a powerful new tool that ‘freezes’ the memory of crime scenes in the minds of witnesses.
The tool - a self-administered interview applied by witnesses at crime scenes - combats natural memory decay by using the latest research in cognitive psychology techniques. It ‘freezes’ images and details of crime scenes and perpetrators in the minds… Continue reading

• Very young children learn better from photos. When they are read to from a picture book describing how to make a rattle, 18-months-old do better at trying to make the rattle when the book had realistic photos compared to line drawings. I’ve always found instructions that use photos very difficult to follow because it’s hard to highlight the relevant portion of the photo. But apparently at a very young

Neuropsychology and Substance Use

Drs. Ari Kalechstein and Wilfred van Gorp present the first edited volume that focuses on the topic of neuropsychology and substance use. The contributing authors, who are well-versed on this topic, have included chapters that highlight the increased levels of drug use in the United States, the manner in which substance abuse affects how addicts think and feel, the effects of various drugs of abuse on brain… Continue reading

Expertise Out of Context

Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Naturalistic Decision Making

Researchers have revealed that real expertise, while applied to well-defined tasks with highly circumscribed contexts, often stretches beyond its routine boundaries. For example, a medical doctor may be called upon to diagnose a rare disease or perform emergency surgery outside his or her area of specialization because other experts are not available. Moreover, in some cases, the context… Continue reading