You’ve likely heard of the book—and the new Netflix series—featuring Marie Kondo. What we want to know is, how does tidying up your life affect your brain? If you’re tuned into the self-optimization literature, chances are you’re familiar with Marie Kondo’s book The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. One common refrain that’s spreading through home… Read More

Researchers at the University of San Diego have found that the language you speak may determine the quality of your working memory. Running memory tests on participants in eight different cultures around the world, they found a difference in working memory capacity among speakers of various languages. The difference stemmed from the syntax of a… Read More

Digital technology has enriched our lives in countless ways, and both teachers and students now rely on it for everything from conducting research to collaborating with peers. Tech has also become a big part of our downtime, and this has blurred the line somewhat between work and play. For example, for most of us, it’s… Read More

We love personality tests because, as Arwa Mahdawi recently put it in an article for The Guardian, “they make us feel normal and special at the same time.” But what do they actually tell us? Which ones, if any, are known to be reliable? Is it possible to do more harm than good by taking… Read More

Researchers at Fairfield University in Connecticut have found the way we take a photo of an object makes a difference in our ability to recall it later. The research team, led by Linda A. Henkel, conducted two studies to determine whether taking photos of objects affects our ability to remember details about them later on…. Read More

Climate change is hard on the brain. It’s effort enough to do the necessary research to fully wrap our heads around what’s happening to the planet, let alone what we can do to preserve it. For some of us, it’s easier to deny this reality than to confront it and change our habits. Once we… Read More