Should she have put her phone away in the next room? That depends. Photo: Suwat Sirivutcharungchit/Shutterstock Students, if you're not familiar with the study tips on The Learning Scientists website, you should be. This page in particular sums up six evidence-based things you should be doing while you study (spoiler alert: The list does not …
Category: Chapter 12; Experiments with More Than One Independent Variable
Are you good at recognizing faces?
Would you have accurately paired the two images of this unfamiliar woman? Photo: Credit: Eugenio Marongiu/Shutterstock According to this study, you probably think you're good at recognizing people's faces. But are you really?This report from NPR suggests that you might not be as skilled as you think. The report begins with stories of two individuals …
Taking photos can improve visual memory
Will these museum visitors remember what they saw? Photo: Owen Franken/Getty Images" Because summer is vacation time, many of us will capture photos of the beaches, mountains, or sites we'll visit. Does taking photos of these scenes improve our memories for our vacation experiences? It might depend on the type of memory we're talking about. …
The coffee nap: Tested with a factorial design
What kind of factorial design could test the benefits of a coffee nap over just one or the other? Photo credit: wavebreakmedia/Shutterstock Store this idea away for a moment of drowsiness: The coffee nap. A coffee nap is when you drink a cup of coffee and then take a 20 minute nap. There's a …
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Subtle social class cues on your resume
What resume cues did the researchers use to manipulate gender? Social class? Photo: Andrey Popov/Shutterstock The Harvard Business Review described a study that tested biases among people who read internship applications. Not just any internships, either: These are internships at prestigious law firms. The HBR reports that these internships.. ... open doors to even more lucrative …
Who can be “really, really smart?”
Which person is "really, really smart?" Which child is more likely to get good grades in school? Photo credit: wavebreakmedia/Shutterstock Who thinks girls are as smart as boys? One study found that it depends on a kid's age and gender. In a set of empirical studies, a team of researchersinvestigated gender differences in gender stereotypes. CNN covered the …
How can we reduce racial biases?
One of the studies randomly assigned White college freshmen to have a White or a Black roommate, and measured the students' bias long term. Credit: ©Syracuse Newspapers / N. Lisi / The Image Works The year 2016 provided multiple references to implicit and explicit racial biases, especially in politics. So you might be wondering, What does …
Safe drivers spot hazards
Evidence shows that visual attention to road hazards can be trained. Photo credit: Shutterstock Here's a package of correlational and experimental research that illustrates the importance of spotting hazards while driving. This summary, from the Association for Psychological Science website, introduces the issue like this: [H]azard perception...involves visually scanning the road ahead for clues that …
Dogs in the MRI
Dogs were trained to lie still in this scanner long enough to participate in the factorial design. Credit: REUTERS/Bernadett Szabo What's not to love about dog research? One recent study, conducted in Hungary and covered here by CNN, trained 13 dogs to lie perfectly still in a functional MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) machine (this story describes …
Trying to cut back on snacks? Maybe visit these sculptures…
A screen saver with photos like these seemed to inspire people to eat fewer Pringles. Photo credit; The box Study, Alamy Here's a description of a study that used a factorial design to study whether those skinny sculptures (pictured) might inhibit people from unhealthy eating. The study is described by Pacific Standard journalist Tom Jacobs here. …
Continue reading Trying to cut back on snacks? Maybe visit these sculptures…