The ability to comprehend sarcasm depends upon a carefully orchestrated sequence of complex cognitive skills based in specific parts of the brain. Yeah, right, and I'm the Tooth Fairy. But it's true: New research details an "anatomy of sarcasm" that explains how the mind puts sharp-tongued words into context.
Especially if you're older, get everything in writing, from estimates to receipts. Psychologists report that the memory function of people in their mid-60s and up is easily swayed by the power of suggestion, making them more vulnerable to memory-related scams.
A new study involving a large sample of students followed for 13 years shows that four or more years in small classes in elementary school significantly increases the likelihood of graduating from high school, especially for students from low-income homes.
A new study confirms how college challenges both mind and body, by demonstrating that lonely first-year students mounted a weaker immune response to the flu shot than did other students.
The prevalence of adolescent obesity has doubled over the last 30 years and can lead to serious medical problems, like high blood pressure, diabetes, cardiovascular disease and colorectal cancer. According to a new study, certain weight-control behaviors may actually contribute more to weight problems than other behaviors.
Despite health warnings about the dangers of second-hand smoke, a large percentage of families have no rules that limit children's exposure to tobacco smoke, according to a study involving 1,770 parents and guardians in New York and New Jersey.
A new study sheds light on why higher education seems to buffer people from cognitive declines as they age. Brain imaging showed that in older adults taking memory tests, more years of education were associated with more active frontal lobes -- the opposite of what happened in young adults.
Two new studies in the current issue of Behavioral Neuroscience present new evidence of how genes may foster two potentially harmful proclivities: one, to nicotine addiction; the other, to aggressively hostile behavior.
Does having a low socioeconomic status lead to depression or does depression lead a person into poverty? According to a study that examined a database of 34,000 patients with two or more psychiatric hospitalizations in Massachusetts during 1994-2000.
Given the heated debate about whether men and women have brain differences that affect cognition, psychologists are searching for definitive answers. However, research in humans is confounded by factors such as diet, medication, lifestyles, rearing and culture.
New research offers dramatic evidence of how psychiatric disorders are underdiagnosed in hospital emergency departments, affecting an increasing number of Americans who rely on such facilities for much of their primary health care needs.
Do people tend to select romantic partners that are similar to them or opposite to them? Researchers at the University of Iowa find that people tend to marry those who are similar in attitudes, religion and values. However, it is similarity in personality that appears to be more important in having a happy marriage.
Research by two business-school professors reveals that people over-commit because we expect to have more time in the future than we have in the present.
Underscoring the value of good prenatal care, new research suggests that early infection may create a cognitive vulnerability that appears later during stress on the immune system.
Carrying the higher-risk genotype for Alzheimer's disease appears to render even healthy older people subject to major problems with prospective memory, the ability to remember what to do in the future.
New and sophisticated methods for studying the relationship between human genetic differences, the environment, health and behavior, all made possible by the completion of the Human Genome Project, have made traditional race-based measurements of human differences obsolete.
Mammals other than humans can distinguish between different speech patterns. Neuroscientists in Barcelona report that rats, like humans and Tamarin monkeys, can extract regular patterns in language from speech cues.
Cumulative trauma during a person's lifetime can have an overall effect on health in one's later years, according to a study that examines the consequences of traumatic events on older adults' physical health.
New MRI-based studies present more evidence that the brains of chimpanzees are human-like in terms of the relationships among brain asymmetry, handedness and language, according to research undertaken at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center in Atlanta.
Researchers at the Boston Veterans Affairs Health Care System "“ Brockton Division, Harvard Medical School, and the University of Massachusetts-Boston are using new imaging technology to gather valuable information about the brains of people with schizophrenia.
New research examines why a person's mental health is important for maintaining a satisfying marriage and how either partner can influence the other's marital happiness.
Scientists may be learning why it's so hard to stop the cycle of violence. The answer may lie in the nervous system. There appears to be a fast, mutual, positive feedback loop between stress hormones and a brain-based aggression-control center in rats, whose neurophysiology is similar to ours.
Why do some older people experience a rapid decline in their physical and functional health while some of their peers remain healthy and active? While your genes and overall physical health play a role, new research shows how psychosocial factors can also play an important role.
Nearly half a million Americans die prematurely from tobacco-related disease and smoking is projected to in some way kill one third of all smokers. Two new studies report on how well nicotine replacement therapy helps two important groups: teenagers and women.
Media Advisory for those interested in covering the American Psychological Association's 112th Annual Convention in Honolulu.
Psychologists have long known that stress affects our ability to fight infection, but a major new "meta-analysis" "“ a study of studies "“ has elucidated intriguing patterns of how stress affects human immunity, strengthening it in the short term but wearing it down over time.
Most will agree that two heads are better than one in solving problems. The same logic may be true for language and retaining cognitive processes as we age. Being fluent in two languages seems to prevent some of the cognitive decline seen in same-age monolingual speaking persons.
How social networks and support influence people's health, the benefits of family friendly policies at work, and how constant terror alerts increase anxiety levels and promote fear in the American population are some of the themes of the 112th Annual Convention.
There really may be something different about the brains of math-heads. Mathematically gifted teens did better than average-ability teens and college students on tests that required the two halves of the brain to cooperate.
Among healthy people over the age of 75 who have the genotype associated with higher risk for Alzheimer's, low levels of vitamin B12 are associated with significantly worse performance on memory tests.
People with abundant parental support during childhood are likely to have relatively good health throughout adulthood, whereas people with inadequate parental support while growing up are likely to have poorer health as adults, suggests a new study of nearly 3,000 adults.
During the French Revolution, tricoteurs knitted while watching hundreds die. Did knitting make it less traumatic? Researchers found that viewers who performed a visuospatial task while watching a distressing video suffered fewer intrusive memories than viewers who performed a verbal task.
New evidence clarifies how the only government-approved treatments for mild-to-moderate Alzheimer's Disease may work to improve symptoms. This finding may shed light on how cholinesterase inhibitors help alleviate dementia symptoms.
When cognitive skills start fading, how do we know when it's time to stop driving? Honing in on specific aspects of an individual's neuropsychological functioning could help clinicians and government agencies develop the right tools to keep drivers "“ and everyone else on the road "“ safe.
Over 50 percent of deaths in the United States can be attributed to behavioral and social factors, says a psychologist who reviewed the last century of research on psychosocial factors and health. Maintaining a positive frame of mind can help a person overcome some of these stress effects.
Intelligence in the workplace is not that different from intelligence at school, according to the results of a meta-analysis of over one hundred studies involving more than 20,000 people.
Diagnosticians would do well to raise the bar when testing high-functioning people for pre-clinical signs of Alzheimer's disease. Higher test cutoffs, rather than the standard group average, more accurately predicted how many highly intelligent people would deteriorate over time.
Motor vehicle accidents are considered the leading cause of posttraumatic stress disorder in the general population and car accidents are the number one trauma for men and the second most frequent trauma for women, according to a new book that examines updated research on PTSD.
In a meta-analysis of 23 studies examining self-reported health and physiological functioning in caregivers of persons with dementia, researchers found that caregivers had higher stress hormones, lower resistance to some viruses and reported poorer health than noncaregivers who were similar in age and sex.
Children whose mothers are depressed after childbirth are at elevated risk for violence by age 11, especially if the mothers suffered repeated depression, according to new research involving British families.
Researchers have additional evidence that reading problems are linked to abnormal sound processing, thanks to high-precision pictures of the brain at work.
The steady rising of IQ scores over the last century (Flynn effect) causes IQ tests norms to become obsolete over time so such tests need to be "renormed" (made harder) every 15-20 years. But this may have unintended consequences, particularly in the area of special education placements.
Behavior therapists may have a better way to help anxious patients, thanks to insights from a study of different ways to get mice past their fears. Neuroscientists found that "massing" the feared stimulus was surprisingly efficient at helping to erase its impact.
From one of the largest prospective and cross-sectional studies conducted on the health of middle-age women, researchers find that first year widows have a substantial drop in their mental health but do bounce back after a period of time, according to a new study.
Women who are in satisfying marriages have a health advantage over unmarried women or those in unsatisfying marriages, according to a new study. It finds that women in good marriages were less likely to develop risk factors that lead to cardiovascular diseases.
New research reveals that, contrary to prior thinking, even the very old retain their distinctive patterns of cognitive strengths and weakness.
A new study on managerial pay finds that not only do women managers earn approximately nine percent less than male managers, but that pay of both men and women managers is also related to the gender and age of those they work with.
Young adults who experienced an episode of major depression in adolescence may be more vulnerable to a relapse in adulthood that could significantly affect their quality of life.
Children diagnosed with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder are more at risk for using illicit drugs, having problems with alcohol, smoking cigarettes, and using marijuana in their adolescence than children without ADHD.
A study involving 4,023 youth interviewed by telephone finds that roughly 16 percent of boys and 19 percent of girls met the criteria for at least one of the following diagnosis: posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), major depressive episode and substance abuse/dependence.
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