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Tuck into our round-up of the latest psych and neuro news.

03 August 2012

By Christian Jarrett

New York Times obituary for the pioneering cognitive psychologist George Miller. “For better or worse, ‘The Magical Number Seven’ came to haunt his scientific career, overshadowing his many other accomplishments”.

Using Twitter to monitor emotional responses to the Olympics in real time.

The latest Neuropod podcast is online and features a section from participants at the recent conference of the Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness.

Adding Women Makes Your Group Smarter — The Evidence Keeps Growing” reports Bob Sutton at the Work Matters blog.

Three fun ways to trigger the illusion of having (or being touched by) a third hand.

The BBC reported that mild mental health problems are associated with reduced longevity.

Several newspapers reported that there’s been another significant rise in the number of anti-depressant prescriptions in the UK. NHS Choices provided a balanced overview of the story. The BBC charted the geographical differences in rates of anti-depressant prescription (Blackpool has the highest rates).

BBC Radio 4’s Beyond Belief discussed the way that religions approach depression and despair.

Are interruptions at work damaging your productivity? A new study examines the benefits of office quiet hours as a solution.

One of the first studies to investigate the effect of taking email access away from workers – better focus and improved relations with colleagues.

Neuroskeptic asks why social scientists insist on writing in such an inaccessible style. Psychologist Graham Davey invites neuroscientists to look at their own writing style – it’s even harder to understand.

What happened next to 4 MPs who told the world about their mental health problems?

Psychologist Lawrence Sanna, who recently quit his post at the University of Michigan, has now retracted one his Psychological Science papers. Sanna was named recently as a target of suspicion by data sleuth Uri Simonsohn.

Literally Psyched blog returned to the roots of experimental psychology and showed how difficult it is to identify the moment the discipline was born.

Professor Elaine Fox was on the Guardian Science podcast talking about the psychology of optimism and pessimism.

Psychologist Scott Barry Kaufman interviewed the World Memory Champion Boris Nikolai Konrad.

A New York Times editorial highlighted the way brain-based explanations for people’s behaviour encourage a sense that “it wasn’t their fault – their brain made them do it”.

The public lynching of pop neuro-writer Jonah Lehrer has been ugly. Daring to go their own way were Paul Tullis (In Defence of Johah) and Robert Wright (A partial defence). Clayton Lord articulated what we’ve lost … for now.