Topic description and stories

A Humboldt's squirrel monkey is fooled by a French drop as part of the experiment.

Sleight-of-hand magic trick only fools monkeys with opposable thumbs

03 Apr 2023

Illusion involving a hidden thumb confounds capuchin and squirrel monkeys for the same reason as humans – it misdirects the expected outcomes of...

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Childhood mental health problems resulting from early-life adversity drive poorer cognitive performance in adolescence, study suggests

08 Feb 2023

Early-life adversity has long-term effects on children’s mental health, which in turn affects cognitive functioning as teenagers, say researchers...

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The psychiatrist who faced a dilemma but couldn’t turn his back on his people

23 May 2022

Children in West Africa with cognitive difficulties are going undiagnosed because the tests used to assess their mental health are based on Western...

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Alarm clock at night

Seven hours of sleep is optimal in middle and old age, say researchers

28 Apr 2022

Seven hours is the ideal amount of sleep for people in their middle age and upwards, with too little or too much sleep associated with poorer...

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Abstract art heads and colour

A mental health revolution

07 Oct 2021

Cambridge-led computerised cognitive assessments transform early detection and treatment of neurological and psychiatric disorders.

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Psychological ‘signature’ for the extremist mind uncovered

22 Feb 2021

Scientists have mapped an underlying “psychological signature” for people who are predisposed to holding extreme social, political or religious...

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Protestors confront each other at a political demonstration

‘Mental rigidity’ at the root of intense political partisanship on both left and right – study

29 Aug 2019

Latest research shows that reduced cognitive flexibility is associated with more 'extreme' beliefs and identities at both ends of the political...

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Brexit March

‘Cognitive flexibility’ associated with voting attitudes in EU Referendum, study finds

16 Apr 2018

Latest research combining social and political surveys with objective cognitive testing suggests that “cognitive flexibility” contributes to...

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Sheep correctly identifying face

Sheep are able to recognise human faces from photographs

08 Nov 2017

Sheep can be trained to recognise human faces from photographic portraits – and can even identify the picture of their handler without prior training...

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Driving a car

Running on autopilot: scientists find important new role for ‘daydreaming’ network

23 Oct 2017

A brain network previously associated with daydreaming has been found to play an important role in allowing us to perform tasks on autopilot...

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Opinion: Can genes really predict how well you’ll do academically?

26 Jul 2016

Daphne Martschenko (Faculty of Education) discusses whether DNA can predict our educational achievement.

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Bilingual street name sign in Bangor, North Wales

Opinion: There are also drawbacks to being bilingual

26 Apr 2016

Tomas Folke (Department of Psychology) and Julia Ouzia (Anglia Ruskin University) discuss the cognitive disadvantages that may be associated with...

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