psychology

Male Eurasian Jays Surprise Ornithologists

The ability to disengage from our own desire to cater to someone else’s wishes is thought to be a unique feature of human cognition.  In a study published in the journal, Biology Letters, Prof Clayton and her colleagues challenge this assumption. Despite wanting something different to eat, male Eurasian jays can disengage from their own current desire in order to feed the female what…

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Scientists Identify Gene Linking Brain Structure to Intelligence

For the first time, scientists at King’s College London have identified a gene linking the thickness of the grey matter in the brain to intelligence. The study is published today in Molecular Psychiatry and may help scientists understand biological mechanisms behind some forms of intellectual impairment. The researchers looked at the cerebral cortex, the outermost layer of the human brain.…

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Psychologists Document the Age Our Earliest Memories Fade

Although infants use their memories to learn new information, few adults can remember events in their lives that happened prior to the age of three. Psychologists at Emory University have now documented that age seven is when these earliest memories tend to fade into oblivion, a phenomenon known as “childhood amnesia.” The journal Memory published the research, which involved interviewing…

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