Thoughts of Women Stupify Male Brains

“Casually mentioning a female instead of a male name was sufficient to impair men’s cognitive performance,” according to a research team from Radboud University in the Netherlands. “Moreover, these effects occur even if men do not get information about the woman’s attractiveness.”

When heterosexual males interact with attractive women, they put so much effort into trying to make a good impression that they don’t have the resources left to think clearly. Caveat: by “males” the scientists mean their usual research animals, university students.

More:

“Sex on the Brain Proves Costly for Men,” Tom Jacobs, Miller-McCune

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Image (“American Male Mind”) by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

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Speak, Memory

Remember “The End of History?  Sigh. How quickly they forget.

We now we have The End of Memory. We forget more these days, but it’s okay. We’ve all out-sourced our long-term memories to search engines. That’s according to a new report by researchers from Harvard, Columbia and the University of Wisconsin:

“Google Effects on Memory: Cognitive Consequences of Having Information at Our Fingertips,” Betsy Sparrow,Jenny Liu, Daniel M. Wegner, Science (abstract)

Steven Pinker on Language (Illustrated)

Psychologist and writer Steven Pinker recently spoke to the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA) about language and cognition. The video of his complete lecture is here, but the animated excerpt above may be easier to follow, and more fun.

 

Video by Cognitive Media for RSA Animate.

Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not boring or obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.