Applying for a loan? Avoid midday! Applications processed around 12pm are more likely to be rejected as bankers suffer from ‘decision fatigue’ Researchers studied the decisions made by 30 bank credit officers over a month Specifically, they looked at 26,501 loan repayment restructuring requests Decision fatigue is caused by making too many difficult choices in a … Read more
Spending more than an hour a day watching programmes on devices may increase the risk that toddlers will have emotional and behavioural issues, a study has warned. These issues include hyperactivity, poor concentration, short attention spans and trouble connecting with other children and forging friendships. The researchers have speculated that devices are reducing the time that children … Read more
Time to ditch the iPad? Tablets and smartphones are ‘rewiring’ children’s BRAINS and making them less able to see the bigger picture People normally focus on the big picture before zeroing in on specific details Hungarian experts tested kids in a task involving images on two different scales Those who frequently used devices were found to … Read more
Are you addicted to your smartphone? More than a THIRD of young adults report symptoms including poor sleep and anxiety when away from their phone – regardless of how long they spend on it each day Experts from King’s College London surveyed 1,043 people aged from 18–30 They were asked about their levels of smartphone usage … Read more
There may be a psychological ‘signature’ for extremism — with those who are more dogmatic and slower at decision making being more susceptible to radicalisation. This is the conclusion of experts from Cambridge, who used a broad range of psychological surveys to identify the mental characteristics common to extremists. These included a poorer working memory, … Read more
Motivation to learn new things and engage with life declines with age due to falling activity in a brain circuit that weighs costs and benefits, a study on mice suggested. US experts have been studying ‘striosomes’ — clusters of cells in the basal ganglia, a brain area linked to habit formation, movement control, emotion and … Read more
Motivation to learn new things and engage with life declines with age due to falling activity in a brain circuit that weighs costs and benefits, a study on mice suggested. US experts have been studying ‘striosomes’ — clusters of cells in the basal ganglia, a brain area linked to habit formation, movement control, emotion and … Read more
‘Get up and go’ starts to fail at the age of 54 as that’s when we lose our motivation to get off the couch and try new things, study finds A Norwegian expert polled 917 people aged 14–77 about their passion and grit He found these factors are strongly correlated in early life, especially in boys After … Read more
Life in plastic: Playing with dolls helps children develop empathy and social skills, study shows Experts scanned the brains of girls and boys as they played pretend with dolls They compared both solo and social play — along with video game play instead Social play and doll play both activated the posterior superior temporal sulcus This … Read more