Quick Hits
Want to keep yourself informed of what is happening in the world of science, neuroscience, and behavioural science?
My Quick Hits aim to do this: daily updates on recent research (and sometimes older research) giving you short, easy to read updates on what is coming out of the world of behavioural science.
Quick Hits are free to access – sign up to receive an email each time a Quick Hit is posted.
Guided Play Highly Effective for Learning in Children
Quick HitsDaily brief research updates from the cognitive sciences ood news for some and bad news for traditionalists...
Childhood Fitness Improves Mid-Life Cognition
Quick HitsDaily brief research updates from the cognitive sciences always find these long-term studies fascinating....
The Truth of “Work Hard, Play Hard”
Quick HitsDaily brief research updates from the cognitive sciences e all know the phrase “work hard, play hard” and...
Coffee Makes Business Teams More Effective
Quick HitsDaily brief research updates from the cognitive sciences just couldn’t resist reviewing this piece of...
Caffeine Makes You More Prone to Impulsive Buying
Quick HitsDaily brief research updates from the cognitive sciences fascinating piece of research just published shows...
Healthy Brains Are Hotter Than You Think
Quick HitsDaily brief research updates from the cognitive sciences hen we get sick we get a fever and we all know what...
Unpredictable Parents Disrupt Brain Circuitry in Children
Quick HitsDaily brief research updates from the cognitive sciences ntuitively we all know that good parenting is...
A New Study on Inter-Brain Synchronisation
Quick HitsDaily brief research updates from the cognitive sciences n case you didn’t know it brain synchronisation (or...
Unique Social Genes in Human Beings
Quick HitsDaily brief research updates from the cognitive sciences ne differentiating factor with human beings is our...
Want to Live Longer? Be Optimistic!
Quick HitsDaily brief research updates from the cognitive sciences e probably all know some people who are...
How Having Had COVID-19 Negatively Impacts Performance at Work
Quick HitsDaily brief research updates from the cognitive sciences ’m sure we’re all aware of the various negative...
Narcissistic Leaders Block Knowledge Flow and Cooperation
Quick HitsDaily brief research updates from the cognitive sciences arcissism is considered one of the three dark-triad...
The Science of Exposing Liars
Quick HitsDaily brief research updates from the cognitive sciences he one place that we can consistently catch people...
High Traffic Noise at School, Slower Cognitive Development
Quick HitsDaily brief research updates from the cognitive sciences ho would have thought that traffic noise could...
How Gratitude between Co-Workers Lowers Stress and Increases Performance
Quick HitsDaily brief research updates from the cognitive sciences ratitude is a nice thing to have, I think we all...
Brain Scans Can Predict Your Political Affiliation
Quick HitsDaily brief research updates from the cognitive sciences rain scanning of political partisans is not new and...
Children with Same-Sex Parents Are Socially Well-Adjusted
Quick HitDaily brief research updates from the cognitive sciences his is not the first study to report that children...
Simple Exposure to New Things Makes Your Brain Ready to Learn
ouldn’t it be great if we could learn things with no effort? Well, actually we often do, and children learn...
So, Can Cranberries Improve Memory?
tend to be hesitant to report on studies of single foods doing amazing things (because many do), but this...
The Real Problem with Social Media: It Induces Dissociative States
Quick HitsDaily brief research updates from the cognitive sciences ocial media seems to hijack our brains – or...
Adventurous Play Boosts Mental Resilience in Kids
o, a simple cheap way to help your kids improve all life skills and strengthen mental wellbeing. Too good to be...
So, Meditation Doesn’t Change Your Brain – Or Does It?
editation can actually change your brain. "Oh, no it can’t!" say these researchers. "Oh, yes it can!" say a...
The Life Factors that Make Lonely People Lonely
Quick HitsDaily brief research updates from the cognitive sciences ou may assume, logically at first glance,...
How Music Helps With Collective Grief
his study recently out analyses a fascinating episode in China at the start of the pandemic. A group of...
Why it pays for companies to help workers have a good day in the office
usiness and executives in those businesses are more than keen to get a competitive advantage. To this end they...
Vaccination to Keep Your Memory?
Quick HitsDaily brief research updates from the cognitive sciences ho wouldn’t want to keep their memory when...
Can Having More Children Reduce Cognitive Functioning?
Quick HitsDaily brief research updates from the cognitive sciences aving more children and late life cognition...
How Sleep Helps Your Brain Manage Fear
Quick HitsDaily brief research updates from the cognitive sciences leep on i” is common advice for many reasons. Often...
Video games can boost children’s intelligence
Quick HitsDaily brief research updates from the cognitive sciences ell, this is not the answer many of us would...
Just how many people get COVID brain?
Quick HitsDaily brief research updates from the cognitive sciences here are many questions still open about...
Brain networks and losing weight – successfully or not
Quick HitsDaily brief research updates from the cognitive sciences s weight loss all in the mind? Well, with...
Reversing aging – with poo!
Quick HitsDaily brief research updates from the cognitive sciences ho wouldn't want to age better - well the...
Brisk walking slows biological aging
Quick HitsDaily brief research updates from the cognitive sciences f you want to age better, then walk quicker,...
Learning at double-speed?
Quick HitsDaily brief research updates from the cognitive sciences ouldn’t it be great if we could learn...
The “drunken monkey” hypothesis – proven
This had to be a story I covered – monkeys and alcohol sounds too good to pass up. But this is also linked to the “drunken monkey”...
The Newly Discovered Bias That Makes Us Think We Are More Diverse Than We Are
A few weeks ago I reported on some newly discovered ways we are biased namely that we consider generic terms such as “people” as...
Self-awareness of autism leads to better quality of life
Autism has become a well-known diagnosis in recent years. Though some people seem to be against this sort of labelling, and the general...
Optimal sleep improves your brain, mental, and physical health - and it’s not as much as you think
I’ve reported multiple times on sleep and how it affects just about...
No change for a century – children’s backgrounds still predict the same educational outcomes
Educational opportunities have changed dramatically for children over the last century – schools have changed, and college and university...
Behaviour at eight helps predict midlife health behaviours
A long-term study in Finland has tracked children from the age of eight until the age of 50 and a new analysis of the data, just...
Psychedelics and consciousness
Psychedelics change our conscious experience of the world – that is part of their attraction. Now a new study out of John Hopkins Medicine...
Lower smartphone usage increases wellbeing
So much has been said about smartphone usage in modern times. This ranges from some who say that they are destroying our brain to others...
Modesty preferred for cooperative teams
In an age where it appears that many people are vying for self-esteem especially through social media, this research is interesting....
Poverty shrinks babies’ brains
Quick HitsDaily brief research updates from the cognitive sciences couple of studies have just been released which...
Babies born with five from seven functional brain networks
In the 1950s the blank slate theory was the most prominent theory ascribed to babies. They are born blank slates and then their...
Your brain on near-death experiences
Near-death experiences have fascinated many people ever since they have been reported. And these experiences guide our view of how we die:...
Social networks grow your brain
The headline is a bit “click baity” but it is what a group of researchers found. To be more specific they found in macaques (cute monkeys)...
What do creative brains look like?
We’d probably all be happy to be a bit more creative — though research into our own opinions show that many people do actually consider...