Psychology in Action

Tag: cognition

  • The Psychology of Film Music

    Have you ever seen a movie which has a great musical score? Wondered how film composers and music directors write and choose music to enhance the images and make the whole experience more powerful? Dr. Roger Kendall, a UCLA Ethnomusicology professor with degrees in music and psychology, studies what makes a “good” match between motion…

  • How We See Food

    I’m not a great cook, but I know what I like. Or do I? Research from Brian Wansink and colleagues may challenge our ideas about how we think of food. How do we behave at buffets? Can a clever name really encourage us to eat something ordinary? Will placement of food at a cafeteria really…

  • 50, 100, 1000 words for snow: Does the language we speak affect how we think?

    Kate Bush, a British singer-songwriter, released a new album this past Monday, titled 50 Words for Snow. The inspiration for this album title comes from the popular belief that the Eskimo language had many, many words for snow because the Eskimo people differentiated all the different types of snow they experienced. On this album, Kate…

  • Know When to Put on Rose-Colored Lenses: When Bias is Useful

    The idea of “positive illusions” is one that has been popular in social psychology since Taylor and Brown published their 1988 paper, “Illusion and well-being: A social psychological perspective on mental health.” Simply put, positive illusions are biased perceptions of reality that are thought to be good for mental health. For instance, studies have shown…

  • Music Cognition

    One of the most fascinating and quickly growing subareas of psychology and the cognitive sciences is music cognition, the interdisciplinary study of how the brain processes and perceives music.  Music cognition is driven primarily by the perception of tempo and pitch, as well as the important concept of expectation.

  • Desirable Difficulties in the Classroom

    Over the last couple of decades, learning and memory researchers have become increasingly interested in bringing scientific findings out of the lab and into the classroom, where they can be implemented into teaching methods to produce more efficient and effective learning.  In a nation mired in an educational crisis, there’s never been a better time…