“Look at Mommy!” “Come with Daddy!” Kids in the terrible two’s and even three’s just don’t seem to listen. Their world appears to be full of distractions. One moment they are giving you their undivided attention as you ask them to sit still, the next they are waddling off as fast as possible in the crowded supermarket. Their attention seems almost hopelessly uncontrollable. They dart from one toy to the next, and eventually you wonder how on earth their teacher gets them to focus for even a minute in school. Is there any way to reduce the distractions of these problematic preschoolers? A cure is bilingualism. Being bilingual means that you have the ability to speak in two or even several languages. Now, I’m not saying popular children’s shows teaching simple phrases from another language, such as Dora the Explorer, may have the most influence on your child’s attentional control, but actually being fairly fluent in multiple languages has a positive effect on preschooler’s attention. Read more…
Distracted driving is one of the major causes of car accidents today, but what if there was a solution to prevent many of them? Distracted driving is when the person in control of the car attends to irrelevant stimuli, causing impaired performance. Some examples include talking on a cell phone, listening to loud music, and texting while driving. A recent paper released by Cognition, Technology & Work proposes that issuing alerts to bring drivers to attention whenever a dangerous traffic situation exists could curb roadside accidents. This could be determined by a driver assistance system that would recognize cues that could signal an uncertain driving situation. But how would this help drivers? To help the reader understand, I will explain some of the psychological processes at work when driving, and when doing so distracted.
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The clock signals the hour. Your palms are sweaty as your professor hands out your final exam. You take a deep breath and look down at the questions in front of you only to realize that you have no idea what the answer is to the first question. Has this ever happened to you? I know it’s happened to me more times than I care to admit. I’ve even had exams that I’ve spent hours studying for and found my brain completely blank when finally confronted with the exam. As a result, I’ve been on the search for the best study strategies to combat these final exam blues.
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I remember my first time attending one of Jing Ye’s meditation sessions in the Rose Chapel at Colby. The idea of meditation had always been appealing to me; it sounded “new age” and profound. In reality, meditation is a lot different from what most people imagine. During my first attempt, my irritation grew as the dull aching in my lower back intensified and the sensation of pins and needles spread through my crossed legs. Not to mention the frog-like noises coming from the guy sitting next to me as he swallowed down saliva. Couldn’t he just stop that? Sitting there with eyes closed, I resorted to generating a to-do list in my head – no one would know I was cheating. Jing had told us to be present and aware of our body’s sensations and emotions in a nonjudgmental manner, but being asked to sit still left me with no choice but to confront the internal chaos that I was usually too busy to notice.
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Everyone has moments in their life that they wish they could forget. It could be that time that you the bridge gave out during your pictures on the water or the inevitable newspaper article written about it. But what if you could forget the whole thing happened and block out that embarrassing moment out of your memory forever?
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Have you ever been focused on something, such as a homework assignment or a TV show, and been suddenly startled by a loud noise? If so, you probably quickly focused on the noise and its source, then returned to the task at hand. This is an example of attentional capture. Attentional capture is the involuntary redirection of attention to an environmental cue, with the purpose of surviving potential predators or dangers. Although we aren’t usually in danger, cues such as loud noises, flashes, or quick movements temporarily grab our attention from our current task. Once we label the potential danger as being safe, we easily return our focus back to our original task. However, not everyone can return to their previous task so easily.
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Ever wonder how accurate eyewitness accounts actually are? Picture yourself sitting in a room conversing with police officers about a crime that you witnessed earlier that day. Will you be able to remember every detail of the event and people involved? Was all of your attention focused on the crime and no other factors? How can we be sure that every memory of the event is even true? Eyewitness accounts in general have been a topic of concern for these very reasons. Many defendants are proven guilty based on eyewitness accounts; some of which consist of distorted/untrue statements. To read more about this topic, click here. Due to these issues, there is a growing interest in researching eyewitness testimonies in psychology, especially in the cognitive field. Read more…
A memory is an event we remember from our past. We have memories of the first time we rode a bike, the time we graduated high school, our first boyfriend/girlfriend and even memories of where we were on 9/11. We believe that our memories are true recollections of what happened, and that what we remember is accurate. However, this isn’t always true; memories are fallible even under the best conditions. In fact, false memories, implanted memories and misinformation are very likely to distort our memory.
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Subida! Subida! Climb! Like Dora in the children’s television show Dora the Explorer, approximately 20% of the American population speaks more than one language fluently. (Grosjean, 2012) They are able to watch Spanish soap operas without subtitles, read the Harry Potter series in German, and ultimately pass along the language to their children. In schools across the country, students are learning a second language every day in the classroom to become bilingual.
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In the past decade, the negative consequences of traumatic brain injuries, more commonly referred to as concussions, have become highly publicized. Once brushed off as an innocent hit to the head, concussions are now taken much more seriously. Although concussions can occur for many reasons, due to their frequency, sports related concussions have become the target of concern. It is estimated that among the 38 million children and adolescents and 170 million adults participate in athletic activities in the US, there are as many as 3.8 million mild traumatic brain injuries that occur each year. Many of these go untreated (Giza et al., 2013).
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