Journal Club

Highlighting recently published papers selected by Academy members

Category Archives: Psychological and Cognitive Sciences

Journal Club: Canines remember who cooperates, suggesting principles similar to those seen in human interaction

Posted on March 15, 2018 by Carolyn Beans

Human cooperation often comes down to one key understanding: You help me, I’ll help you. Social animals, including dogs, also help others, even nonrelatives. But many scientists assume that animal cooperation is a different breed. They see animals as less … Continue reading →

Journal Club: Tracking memories in fruit fly brains

Posted on April 13, 2017 by Carolyn Beans

Memories help animals make predictions. A honeybee may remember that the smell of orange blossoms means nectar is nearby. But sometimes memories require updating. “If you know that your fridge is a good source of food, and you go to … Continue reading →

Journal Club: How the principles of principals affect student values

Posted on January 3, 2017 by Stephen Ornes

Kids go to school to study math, science, literature, and other subjects. But at least since the time of Plato, philosophers and others have highlighted the importance of educational institutions in shaping the values of students, who will be tomorrow’s … Continue reading →

Categories: Journal Club | Psychological and Cognitive Sciences | Tagged principals, schools, teaching, values | Leave a comment

Journal Club: How your body feels influences your confidence levels

Posted on November 10, 2016 by Charles Choi

Despite living in a world filled with uncertainty, people are generally not constantly paralyzed by doubt, but instead feel confident about their choices. Previous research often assumed that this feeling of confidence was based solely on the availability of high-caliber … Continue reading →

Categories: Journal Club | Psychological and Cognitive Sciences | Tagged confidence, decision-making | Leave a comment

Journal Club: How much you think you understand depends on what you believe others understand

Posted on October 13, 2016 by Amber Dance

Knowing that experts understand something is enough to make lay persons think they, too, have better grasped a concept, according to a September 26 paper in the journal Psychological Science. Cognitive scientist Steven Sloman, of Brown University in Providence, Rhode … Continue reading →

Categories: Journal Club | Psychological and Cognitive Sciences | Tagged community of knowledge | 1 Comment

Journal Club: Childhood adversities correlated with shortened telomeres, poorer health later in life

Posted on October 3, 2016 by Amber Dance

Stressful experiences during youth seem to leave a mark on a person’s genome decades later, in the form of withered chromosomal caps. As reported in PNAS, childhood stress correlates with increased odds to have shortened telomeres, the chromosome tips that … Continue reading →

Categories: Cell Biology | Journal Club | Psychological and Cognitive Sciences | Tagged childhood, stress, telomeres | Leave a comment

Journal Club: Even infants intuitively infer how others minimize costs and maximize rewards

Posted on July 20, 2016 by Charles Choi

A growing body of research suggests that people have a commonsense psychology — an intuitive way to infer what others want and might decide — that is already sophisticated from infancy. Now researchers have proposed a model for this commonsense … Continue reading →

Categories: Journal Club | Psychological and Cognitive Sciences | Tagged Bayesian, commonsense psychology, utility | Leave a comment

Journal Club: Even in honeybees, early aggression makes for angry adults

Posted on November 3, 2015 by Charles Choi

A childhood of violence can make humans and other animals violent later on. Now scientists unexpectedly find the same holds true for even the simple honeybee. Unlike people, however, greater aggression in honeybees was not associated with later health problems. … Continue reading →