Psychology in Action

Category: Neuroscience

  • Serial: the Case of Memory

    Serial: the Case of Memory

    Serial has quickly become an international obsession. From the master storytellers of This American Life, the focal story of the inaugural season is about details surrounding the 1999 conviction of then high-school student Adnan Syed for the murder of ex-girlfriend Hae Min Lee. A new episode is released every Thursday (this week will be the…

  • Outreach Event: Explore Your Universe!

    Outreach Event: Explore Your Universe!

    What was the first science experiment you ever conducted? When did you first think about thinking? Were you in awe the first time you saw an illusion? Well, this past Sunday, Psychology in Action participated in UCLA’s annual Explore Your Universe Event – a scientific expo for the community to come and learn about the brain,…

  • Obscurantism: Lame explanations to the lame questions

    Obscurantism: Lame explanations to the lame questions

    “Indeed, the quantum theory implies that consciousness must exist, and that the content of the mind is the ultimate reality.” Your intuition can fail you on what is genius and what is asinine. Good thinking strives, almost as its prime directive, to clarify. It doesn’t mean a discussion you have with someone else on a…

  • Rapid Reaction – The Suicide of Robin Williams

    “O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done, The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won, The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting, While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring; But O heart! heart! heart! O the bleeding drops of red,…

  • “Criminally Minded: The Psychology and Law of Culpability” Symposium – May 16, 4pm

    “Criminally Minded: The Psychology and Law of Culpability” Symposium – May 16, 4pm

    Criminally Minded: The Psychology and Law of Culpability Psychology in Action is proud to announce the third annual Psychology Interdisciplinary Events symposium, Criminally Minded: The Psychology and Law of Culpability, to be held Friday, May 16th, 2014, from 4 to 6pm in UCLA’s CNSI Auditorium.  The discussion will focus on legal and psychological issues regarding mens rea.  The…

  • Feeling the Love [Hormone]: the Oxytocin Receptor

    Feeling the Love [Hormone]: the Oxytocin Receptor

    Oxytocin has gotten a lot of hype as the biological basis of our favorite human emotion, Love. Oxytocin is a hormone produced by the hypothalamus and released by the posterior pituitary gland. The oxytocin system is involved in HPA axis and autonomic nervous system functions as well as reproductive functions and social behaviors.  We are coming…

  • The anti-inflammatory effects of music

    Can music help us heal? The first piece of research evidence that turned me on to my field was a finding presented in a Health Psychology course as an undergraduate.  Researchers found that after surgery, patients healed faster, and were released from the hospital sooner, if they had a window that looked out on to…

  • Psychological Skills: Changing your Emotions – An Intro to Cognitive Reappraisal

    A longtime friend of mine (names withheld for privacy), who now works as a writer for a very famous game company, recently told me about how he got his first job there. “So when I first applied, I submitted a bunch of material for them to evaluate. They knew that I had some outside experience and…

  • There is a green% chance you will read this post.

    Recently The Onion posted this tongue-in-cheek article regarding synesthesia. For those of you who may not know, synesthesia is a neurological phenomenon in which people experience cross-sensory perceptions. Fellow PIA blogger Emma Geller has written a fabulous primer to the world of synesthesia, located here, but the quick-and-dirty version is that synesthetes have associations between senses…

  • Graduate Program Interviews: Cognitive Psychology

    Graduate Program Interviews: Cognitive Psychology

    So you applied to PhD programs in Psychology in the fall, with some kind of interest or focus in cognitive psychology – memory, attention, perception, thinking, learning, cognitive neuroscience, computational modeling of cognition, etc. Now interviews are coming up. Want to get the inside scoop on the interviewing/decision process? What questions to ask, what to…