cognition

We may not be able to change recent events in our lives, but how well we remember them plays a key role in how our brains model what’s happening in the present and predict what’s likely to occur in the future, finds new research in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General.

A new study in JAMA Psychiatry shows that therapy provided via telephone for older adults in rural areas is effective in treating anxiety disorder. In an accompanying editorial, Eric J. Lenze, MD, of Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, wrote that the health-care system lacks the capacity to help the growing elderly population and that relying too heavily on sedative medications isn’t the answer.​

Lecture-based learning can be challenging for students who have difficulties building mental models for the organization of new information, but providing them with diagrams and other supporting material in advance of the lecture can help them overcome these hurdles, suggests new research from Washington University in St. Louis.

Why do so many of us cry at the movies? Why do we flinch when Rocky Balboa takes a punch? What’s really happening in our brains as we immerse ourselves in the lives being acted out on screen? These are the questions that Washington University in St. Louis neuroscientist Jeffrey M. Zacks, PhD, explores in his new book, “Flicker: Your Brain on Movies.”

People learn better and recall more when given the impression that they will soon have to teach newly acquired material to someone else, suggests new research from the Department of Psychology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis.

Figuring out how to survive on a lean-season diet of hard-to-reach ants, slugs and other bugs may have spurred the development of bigger brains and higher-level cognitive functions in the ancestors of humans and other primates, suggests research from Washington University in St. Louis.

A new study by researchers at Washington University in St. Louis, University of California, Los Angeles, and Indiana University found that listeners can accurately determine the relative heights of speakers just by listening to them talk. The key clue may be contained in a particular type of sound produced in the lower airways of the lungs, known as a subglottal resonance.

Memory problems related to day-to-day activities — one of the largest complaints of people with Alzheimer’s diease — may be due to older adults’ inability to segment their daily lives into discrete experiences, suggests new psychology research from Washington University in St. Louis. How we perceive events in our current lives influences how we remember them in the future, the study finds.

Why is it so hard for some people to resist the least little temptation, while others seem to possess incredible patience, passing up immediate gratification for a greater long-term good? The answer, suggests a new study from Washington University in St. Louis, is that patient people focus on future rewards in a way that makes the waiting process seem much more pleasurable.

Developing new and innovative approaches for the teaching of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) is the primary goal of an interdisciplinary conference to be held Sept. 27-28 at the Charles F. Knight Executive Education & Conference Center at Washington University in St. Louis.