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This article talks about our relationship with our own language. It is interesting because it makes a connection between our grammar/word choice and our mental health and gives advice on how to improve our lives.

Lera Boroditsky, then an assistant professor of psychology, neuroscience, and symbolic systems at Stanford University at the time of this article, looks at how the languages we speak shape the way we think. Boroditsky's research data, collected from around the world, suggeststhat people who speak different languages do indeed think differently and that even flukes of grammar can profoundly affect how we see the world. Language is a uniquely human gift, central to our experience of being human. Appreciating its role in constructing our mental lives brings us one step closer to understanding the very nature of humanity. Boroditsky argues that patterns in a language can indeed play a causal role in constructing how we think - that learning a new language isn't simply learning a new way of talking, but a new way of thinking. Languages shape the way we think about space, time, colors, and objects. Other studies have found effects of language on how people construe events, reason about causality, keep track of number, understand material substance, perceive and experience emotion, reason about other people's minds, choose to take risks, and even in the way they choose professions and spouses. Taken together, these results show that linguistic processes are pervasive in most fundamental domains of thought, unconsciously shaping us from the nuts and bolts of cognition and perception to our loftiest abstract notions and major life decisions. Language is central to our experience of being human, and the languages we speak profoundly shape the way we think, the way we see the world, the way we live our lives.

This article outlines research-based advice regarding teen use of social media. Psychological scientists examine potential beneficial and harmful effects of social media use on adolescents' social, educational, psychological, and neurological development. This is a rapidly evolving and growing area of research with implications for many stakeholders (e.g., youth, parents, caregivers, educators, policymakers, practitioners, and members of the tech industry) who share responsibility to ensure adolescents' well-being.b Officials and policymakers including the U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy have documented the importance of this issue and are actively seeking science-informed input.c

As well as making signage clearer, it's been shown that an easy-to-read typeface might convince your brain that a given task is easier to perform because information printed in a legible typeface ostensibly requires less mental effort to understand and process. Interestingly, some studies suggest when words are harder to process, people pay more attention to what the words actually say; because of that, the memory trace becomes stronger, aiding comprehension and retention. Printing something in hard-to-read font increases "desirable difficulty," the addition of an obstruction to the learning process that requires you to put in just enough effort, which leads to better memory retention and deeper cognitive processing." For those of you who might be interested in testing desirable difficulty out, the author suggests an experimental design.

Multilingualism has been shown to have many social, psychological and lifestyle advantages, including superior ability to concentrate, solve problems and focus, better mental flexibility and multitasking skills. Moreover, researchers are finding a swathe of health benefits from speaking more than one language, including faster stroke recovery and delayed onset of dementia. A steady stream of studies over the past decade has shown that bilinguals outperform monolinguals in a range of cognitive and social tasks from verbal and nonverbal tests to how well they can read other people. Greater empathy is thought to be because bilinguals are better at blocking out their own feelings and beliefs in order to concentrate on the other person's.

A 2022 University of Cambridge study conducted by Sahakian, Langley, Chen, et al., and published in the journal _Neurology_, shows that that social isolation is linked to changes in brain structure and cognition - the mental process of acquiring knowledge - it even carries an increased risk of dementia in older adults. Previous research established that brain regions consistently involved in diverse social interactions are strongly linked to networks that support cognition, including the default mode network (which is active when we are not focusing on the outside world), the salience network (which helps us select what we pay attention to), the subcortical network (involved in memory, emotion and motivation) and the central executive network (which enables us to regulate our emotions). This particular study examined how social isolation affects grey matter - brain regions in the outer layer of the brain, consisting of neurons. It investigated data from nearly 500,000 people from the UK Biobank, with a mean age of 57. People were classified as socially isolated if they were living alone, had social contact less than monthly and participated in social activities less than weekly. The study also included neuroimaging (MRI) data from approximately 32,000 people. That data revealed that socially isolated people had poorer cognition, including in memory and reaction time, and lower volume of grey matter in many parts of the brain. These areas included the temporal region (which processes sounds and helps encode memory), the frontal lobe (which is involved in attention, planning and complex cognitive tasks) and the hippocampus - a key area involved in learning and memory, which is typically disrupted early in Alzheimer's disease. We also found a link between the lower grey matter volumes and specific genetic processes that are involved in Alzheimer's disease. Follow-ups with participants 12 years later showed that those who were socially isolated, but not

Negative external or internal psychological factors can lead to mental blocks, causing breaks in focus and preparation, poor performance and, at times, injuries to athletes. . If not dealt with, these factors may not only affect the athlete but the team as a whole. To combat these powerful effects, coaches and athletes can focus their efforts on tactics such as goal setting, routines, visualization and confidence. While the article does not specifically target language, readers could extrapolate how effective self-talk might incorporate some of these key tactics.

One of the simplest concepts of sports psychology is developing positive self talk. It's also one of the hardest sports psychology skills to master. Research supports the theory that an athlete who continually practices positive self talk will improve his or her sports performance. Succumbing to negative mental self talk is a sure way to reduce performance and sports success. Over time and with repetition an athlete can develop a new habit of thinking positive statements and thoughts and expect a more positive outcome. It's this connection between the words and the belief that is the ultimate goal of this technique. Another important factor of positive self talk is that it must be possible and believable.

How does your phone affect your attention span? This article looks at how younger generations have a shorter attention span because of our constant use of phones. Also has a few tips for improving attention and focus.

Nick Perham, a psychology researcher who conducted a major study on music and reading comprehension, gives a summary of music's effect on productivity. Whether it is beneficial or not is dependent on task and the timing of the music.While recent research has found that music can have beneficial effects on creativity, with other areas of performance, the impact of background music is more complicated. Performance is poorer when a task is undertaken in the presence of background sound (irrelevant sound that you are ignoring), in comparison to quiet: this is known as the irrelevant sound effect. The irrelevant sound effect phenomenon arises from attempting to process two sources of ordered information at the same time - one from the task and one from the sound. Unfortunately, only the former is required to successfully perform the serial recall task, and the effort expended in ensuring that irrelevant order information from the sound is not processed actually impedes this ability. A similar conflict is also seen when reading while in the presence of lyrical music. In this situation, the two sources of words - from the task and the sound - are in conflict. The subsequent cost is poorer performance of the task in the presence of music with lyrics. It doesn't matter whether one likes the music or not--performance was equally poor. Whether having music playing in the background helps or hinders performance depends on the task and on the type of music, and only understanding this relationship will help people maximise their productivity levels. If the task requires creativity or some element of mental rotation, then listening to music one likes can increase performance. In contrast, if the task requires one to rehearse information, then quiet is best, or, in the case of reading comprehension, quiet or instrumental music. One promising area of the impact of music on cognitive abilities stems from actually learning to play a musical instrument. Studies show that child

The article explores how abbreviations, particularly in scientific communication, can be alienating to unfamiliar audiences and are often unnecessary. It argues that many scientific abbreviations are mentally taxing.

The relationship between language and cognition is examined in this article. Specifically, it looks at how language affects our behavior, perception, and mental processes. Overall, it addresses the affects that language as on society and how it influences our behaviors.