Trolls just want to have fun Erin E. Buckels, Paul D. Trapnell, Delroy L. Paulhus In two online studies (total N = 1215), respondents completed personality inventories and a survey of their Internet commenting styles. Overall, strong positive associations emerged among online commenting frequency, trolling enjoyment, and troll identity, pointing to a common construct underlying […]
Study Alerts
STUDY ALERT: Improving Students’ Long-Term Knowledge Retention Through Personalized Review
Improving Students’ Long-Term Knowledge Retention Through Personalized Review Robert V. Lindsey, Jeffery D. Shroyer, Harold Pashler, and Michael C. Mozer Abstract Human memory is imperfect; thus, periodic review is required for the long-term preservation of knowledge and skills. However, students at every educational level are challenged by an ever-growing amount of material to review and an […]
STUDY ALERT: What Does Physical Rotation Reveal About Mental Rotation?
What Does Physical Rotation Reveal About Mental Rotation? Aaron L. Gardony, Holly A. Taylor, and Tad T. Brunyé In a classic psychological science experiment, Shepard and Metzler (1971) discovered that the time participants took to judge whether two rotated abstract block figures were identical increased monotonically with the figures’ relative angular disparity. They posited that participants […]
STUDY ALERT: Strong Genetic Influence on a Test of Educational Achievement at the End of Compulsory Education
Strong Genetic Influence on a UK Nationwide Test of Educational Achievement at the End of Compulsory Education at Age 16 Nicholas G. Shakeshaft, Maciej Trzaskowski1, Andrew McMillan1, Kaili Rimfeld1, Eva Krapohl1, Claire M. A. Haworth2, Philip S. Dale, Robert Plomin We have previously shown that individual differences in educational achievement are highly heritable in the early […]
STUDY ALERT: Time to rethink the neural mechanisms of learning and memory
Time to rethink the neural mechanisms of learning and memory Charles R. Gallistel a, Peter D. Balsam Most studies in the neurobiology of learning assume that the underlying learning process is a pairing – 23 dependent change in synaptic strength that requires repeated experience of events presented in close 24 temporal contiguity. However, much learning […]
STUDY ALERT: The Eye Pupil Adjusts to Imaginary Light
The Eye Pupil Adjusts to Imaginary Light Bruno Laeng and Unni Sulutvedt If a mental image is a rerepresentation of a perception, then properties such as luminance or brightness should also be conjured up in the image. We monitored pupil diameters with an infrared eye tracker while participants first saw and then generated mental images […]
STUDY ALERT: Do cognitive training programs benefit children with ADHD? A meta-analytic review
Do programs designed to train working memory, other executive functions, and attention benefit children with ADHD? A meta-analytic review of cognitive, academic, and behavioral outcomes Mark D. Rapport, Sarah A. Orban, Michael J. Kofler, and Lauren M. Friedman Children with ADHD are characterized frequently as possessing underdeveloped executive functions and sustained attentional abilities, and recent […]
STUDY ALERT: The rule-dependence model explains the commonalities between the Flynn effect and IQ gains via retesting
The rule-dependence model explains the commonalities between the Flynn effect and IQ gains via retesting Elijah L. Armstrong and Michael A. Woodley We present a new model of the Flynn effect. It is proposed that Flynn effect gains are partly a function of the degree to which a test is dependent on rules or heuristics. […]
STUDY ALERT: Intelligence indexes generalist genes for cognitive abilities
Intelligence indexes generalist genes for cognitive abilities Maciej Trzaskowski, Nicholas G. Shakeshaft, Robert Plomin Twin research has supported the concept of intelligence (general cognitive ability, g) by showing that genetic correlations between diverse tests of verbal and nonverbal cognitive abilities are greater than 0.50. That is, most of the genes that affect cognitive abilities are […]
STUDY ALERT: Experimental studies of ongoing conscious experience
Experimental studies of ongoing conscious experience Jerome L. Singer A research programme designed to find ways of applying a variety of methods in psychological science to studying the seemingly ephemeral phenomena of the human stream of consciousness and its manifestations in daydreams, interior monologues, imagery and related private experiences is described. Approaches include psychometric studies to […]
STUDY ALERT: Expertise- Review
Expertise K. Anders Ericsson and Tyler J. Towne The study of expertise is based on the premise that experts in different domains follow a similar path of acquisition and development. This article distinguishes two research approaches to the study of expertise. The traditional approach assumes a steady progression from novice to expert as a function […]
STUDY ALERT: The neuromodulator of exploration: A unifying theory of the role of dopamine in personality
The neuromodulator of exploration: A unifying theory of the role of dopamine in personality Colin G. DeYoung The neuromodulator dopamine is centrally involved in reward, approach behavior, exploration, and various aspects of cognition. Variations in dopaminergic function appear to be associated with variations in personality, but exactly which traits are influenced by dopamine remains an open […]