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Elizabeth Loftus, Past President of APS, is an internationally recognized expert in the study of human memory, particularly the malleability of memories. Her extensive research shows that memory is highly susceptible to distortion and manipulation, and that people can vividly recall events that never happened. Her research on false memory, the reliability of eyewitness reports, and memories "recovered" through therapy has affected how law enforcement, courts, and psychologists consider eyewitness testimony. Loftus is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and has received the highest scientific honors for her work.

Prior research has documented cultural dimensions that broadly characterize between-culture variations in Western and East Asian societies and that bicultural individuals can flexibly change their behaviors in response to different cultural contexts. In this article, we studied cultural differences and behavioral switching in the context of the fast emerging, naturally occurring online social networking, using both self-report measures and content analyses of online activities on two highly popular platforms, Facebook and Renren (the "Facebook of China"). Results showed that while Renren and Facebook are two technically similar platforms, the Renren culture is perceived as more collectivistic than the Facebook culture. Furthermore, we presented evidence for the first time that users who are members of both online cultures flexibly switch and adapt their in-group sharing behaviors in response to the online community in which they are: They perform more benevolent in-group sharing when they participate in the Renren community and less so when they participate in the Facebook community. We discussed both the theoretical and methodological implications of the current research

For the past four decades, the "marshmallow test" has served as a classic experimental measure of children's self-control: will a preschooler eat one of the fluffy white confections now or hold out for two later? The original research began at Stanford University in the late 1960s. Walter Mischel and other researchers famously showed that individual differences in the ability to delay gratification on this simple task correlated strongly with success in later life. Longer wait times as a child were linked years later to higher SAT scores, less substance abuse, and parental reports of better social skills.

When Qi Wang, PhD, began her graduate studies at Harvard, she thought she had a broad knowledge of psychology research. After all, she had graduated with high honors in psychology from Peking University. But as she began working with her new advisers, Wang realized that she'd never even heard of their research area: autobiographical memory.

There's an unfounded gender stereotype that says women aren't as good at maths as men. Reminding them of this prior to a maths task usually undermines their performance - just one example of a harmful phenomenon known as stereotype threat.

Brain games will make you smarter! The internet is making you dumber! Alcohol is killing your brain cells! The brain is a mystery we've been trying to solve for ages, and the desire to unlock its secrets has led to vast amounts of misinformation. Many of these false notions are more widely believed than the truth. We took our healthy skepticism and a bunch of brain research to find the truth behind some of the most common myths about intelligence and our brains. Here's what we learned

Being poor can sap a person's mental resources, research published in the journal Science suggests.

Female chimpanzees are more "negative" when communicating with other females, research has found.

oday, thanks to better early detection, there are 63% fewer deaths from heart disease than there were just a few decades ago. Thomas Insel, Director of the National Institute of Mental Health, wonders: Could we do the same for depression and schizophrenia? The first step in this new avenue of research, he says, is a crucial reframing: for us to stop thinking about "mental disorders" and start understanding them as "brain disorders.

oday, thanks to better early detection, there are 63% fewer deaths from heart disease than there were just a few decades ago. Thomas Insel, Director of the National Institute of Mental Health, wonders: Could we do the same for depression and schizophrenia? The first step in this new avenue of research, he says, is a crucial reframing: for us to stop thinking about "mental disorders" and start understanding them as "brain disorders.

Looks aren't everything but love, it would seem, is far from blind. Across cultures and sexes, some features hold greater appeal. "More symmetrical faces do seem to be rated more attractive," says Tamsin Saxton, a senior lecturer at Northumbria University and part of the evolution, perception and behaviour research group. "The theory goes that your genes provide a template for symmetrical bodies, symmetrical face. [When] there's some sort of problem - you get ill or you encounter some problem with the environment - that can sometimes throw the symmetry off a little bit," she says. "So it might be that if you are picking a symmetric partner then you are actually picking somebody whose genes are fairly well suited to the environment around you."