Mindlinks – February 2015
Every month we bring you the latest news from the world of Psychology! Here is my collection of links that I found most exciting the last month. Feel free to add your favorite news in the comment section!
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Are animals altruistic or do they only act according to survival instincts? Read about ravens and bats, who share their food and a monkey who successfully resuscitates another of his species. |
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An expert panel published new recommendations on how much sleep people should get. Find out whether you sleep enough! |
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Researchers built a 3-D brain structure from stem cells. Will it be possible to replace damaged brain parts? |
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One possible reason why people turn to social media websites is “feedback seeking”. If you are insecure in your relationships you may engage more actively on Facebook. |
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Pigeons are smarter than you might think! They can learn how to categorize and name both natural and manmade objects in a similar way as children learn words. |
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Children who are born without a hearing nerve might be able to hear in the future! Researchers successfully implanted an auditory brainstem implant. |
NOTE: Image by Arkady Amiragov, Ingrid Taylar, mrehan, geralt, nate bolt, claudiogennari, Travis Isaacs, licenced under CC by 2.0, CC BY-SA 2.0 or CC0 1.0
Hanna Lembcke is a third-year student in the International Psychology Bachelor programme in Groningen and takes part in the University’s Honours College. Her interests lie in clinical-, cognitive- and neuropsychology. After finishing her high school degree in Germany, she worked with people with mental disorders and her interest in psychology grew enormously as did the wish to help people in a clinical setting. She became very interested in research during her research internship in the department for cognitive psychology at the RUG. As a student editor of Mindwise, she is eager to make knowledge about psychological research accessible to a broad audience, especially students.
Interesting choices, Hanna. I remember reading about pigeon pattern-learning when I was in my undergrad!
My picks for February:
A sad but inspiring piece by Oliver Sacks about his learning he has terminal cancer:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/19/opinion/oliver-sacks-on-learning-he-has-terminal-cancer.html
And a curious/interesting response of the journal Basic and Applied Social Psychology to the difficulty scientists have understanding significance tests. Ban them altogether! Here is their editorial (pdf):
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/01973533.2015.1012991
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