A short attention span is a common problem for many people. It happens to the best of us. You’re sitting in class or in a meeting and you suddenly find yourself daydreaming, losing focus, and not paying attention. In one…
While conventional views of human intelligence focus on an individual’s intellectual potential, the theory of multiple intelligences suggests that intelligence is more than just a single general mental ability. First introduced by Harvard psychologist Howard Gardner in his 1983 book…
Forgetting is a memory problem that plagues us all. Little wonder then why researchers have devoted so much time and energy to understanding why we forget and the cognitive process behind memory failures. Researchers have explored a number of different…
For each and every thing you do during any given day, you can guarantee that memory plays a role. This is why memory problems can be so troublesome. After all, who would you be without your unique memories of events,…
Trying to learn something new? Have a big exam tomorrow? New research suggests that sleep plays a pivotal role in your brain’s ability to learn new information. So the next time you have a test, try studying first before getting…
We all know that regular exercise is good for your body, but there is a growing body of evidence that physical activity is also good for your brain. In recent years, a number of studies with both animal and human…
You probably realize that there are subtle cognitive and motivation biases that influence your perceptions and decisions. Yet if you are like most people, you also tend to notice those biases more in other people than in yourself. This tendency…
All of us make bad decisions from time to time. The judgments and choices you make each day, no matter how big or how small, are all influenced by a wide variety of biases, prejudices, emotions, errors, mental short-cuts, and…
What strategies can you use to encourage people to work harder and increase achievement? Could your beliefs about intelligence influence how hard you work? According to the results of one study, simply telling people that intelligence is due to the…
Cognitive psychology is the area of psychology that focuses on internal mental processes. Such processes include thinking, decision-making, problem-solving, language, attention, and memory. This field is often considered part of the larger field of cognitive science. This branch of psychology…
