In case you missed them – 10 of the best psychology links from the past week (or so):
1. Atlantic published a truly dazzling long-form feature about anaesthesia and consciousness, including instances when people wake during surgery, and the on-going attempts to build a machine that can somehow measure the level of a person’s awareness (their consciousness). (see also).
2. Bang in the middle of the Xmas and New Year festivities, BBC Radio Four broadcast a timely special edition of its Thinking Allowed programme all about intoxication (now on iPlayer).
3. It’s never too late to learn a new skill, says Gary Marcus in an up-beat essay for the New Yorker.
4. Vaughan Bell for The Observer wrote a column arguing that violent video games are unlikely to be the catalyst for mass killings, and that playing them could even have cognitive benefits. But this is a controversial area. Daniel Simons recently took to his blog to argue that the evidence-base for the cognitive benefits of video games is woefully weak: “There’s no reason to think that gaming will help your real world cognition any more than would just going for a walk.” [check the comments on Simons’ blog for debate between him and Bell].
5. It’s the season for “Best-Of” lists. Forbes had a good one (compiled by David DiSalvo): “The Top 10 Brain Science and Psychology Stories of 2012“.
6. Psychology Today listed their 25 most popular blog posts of 2012: relationships and gender were the dominant themes.
7. Wiley made a whole suite of papers on siblings relationships available for free.
10. The psychology of make-up.
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Post compiled by Christian Jarrett (@psych_writer) for the BPS Research Digest.
