Recent Articles on Sleep, Memory, Learning, Brain Function, and Mind Wandering
Examining Sleep’s Roles in Memory and Learning
Go ahead and take that nap. New research suggests that sleep can improve both memory and creativity.
Getting smarter
Brain-training games won’t boost your IQ, but a host of strategies can improve your cognitive abilities one piece at a time
Psychologist Jeffrey M. Zacks of Washington University in St. Louis looks at various popular methods advertised to improve cognitive functioning, including brain-training games, drugs, subliminal training programs, electrical stimulation
His conclusion: “Sadly, most of the rapid cognitive enhancers currently being peddled are not very effective.” However, he adds, there are a few approaches that can make us better at performing specific functions, such as remembering people’s names: “we can all think better in specific domains if we engage in focused practice, and be smarter, happier and healthier if we take care of ourselves.”
Jerome S. Bruner, Who Shaped Understanding of the Young Mind, Dies at 100
Jerome S. Bruner, whose theories about perception, child development and learning informed education policy for generations and helped launch the modern study of creative problem solving, known as the cognitive revolution, died on Sunday [June 5, 2016] at his home in Manhattan. He was 100.
In his later work, Bruner applied ideas about thinking, culture, and storytelling to understanding legal and cultural issues.
Why Do Our Minds Wander?
sometimes, even without going to sleep, we turn away from the world. We turn inward. We are contemplative or detached. We decouple ourselves from the environment and we are set free, as it were, to let our minds play themselves.
Philosopher Alva Noë of the University of California, Berkeley, discusses the problems of studying when, why, and how our minds sometimes wander.
© 2016 by Mary Daniels Brown