You can’t teach an old dog new tricks – or so the saying goes. Developmental psychologists like Piaget tended to assume that cognition and the corresponding brain development were complete by the age of about twenty. However, recent research into brain neuroplasticity shows that adults, even older adults, can continue to learn throughout their lives, and improve their brains in … Read More
What is a ‘key study’?
Key studies are studies that are the most useful for any Psychology course, because they provide the ‘key’ to understanding a concept or theory. For example, Maguire’s famous ‘taxi driver’ study, Loftus and Palmer’s ‘car crash’ study or Rosenhan’s research into the validity of diagnosis on admission to mental hospitals. Teachers and students can benefit by summarising these studies according … Read More
Overstimulation of newborn mice leads to deficits in cognition and attention
This research could be a useful counter argument to the classic Rosenzweig, Bennett and Diamond study (1972) into enriched environment and neuroplasticity. It suggests disco lights are out, but toys are in! This study was based on earlier findings by Christakis et al. (2004) that young children’s excessive television watching led to later attention problems. Christakis, Ramirez and Ramirez (2012) subjected … Read More
Describe or Discuss? Applied to a biological approach question.
Every question on your IB Diploma exam paper, indeed every question you answer in class, begins with a command term. A command term is a word (or a few words) that tells you the focus to take in your answer. If it is a response to a short-answer question, then one of the most common command terms is ‘describe’: Describe … Read More