Sukha Wellness Institute

The holidays are a time for joy and togetherness, but for many they can also spur feelings of loneliness. There aren’t comprehensive statistics for how many people feel starved for connection this time of year, but there are clues: A 2017 AARP survey, for instance, found that 31 percent of adults aged 18 and older have […]

In early 2021 emergency room physician Torree McGowan hoped the worst of the pandemic was behind her. She and her colleagues had adapted to the COVID-causing virus, donning layers of protection before seeing each patient, but they’d managed to keep things running smoothly. The central Oregon region where McGowan lived—a high desert plateau ringed by

To find mirth in the world is to be human. No culture is unfamiliar with humor, according to Joseph Polimeni, an associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Manitoba. For someone who analyzes humor, Polimeni tells me he’s still surprised by its complexity: How words and phrases and jokes have different meanings to everyone, but we

The title of “How Do We Know Ourselves? Curiosities and Marvels of the Human Mind” suggests that Hope College psychologist David Myers will, in this brief book, focus primarily on the process of self-discovery. But a better title might have been “How Well Do We Know Ourselves?” The answer that emerges, over 40 charming and clear-eyed chapters

The Matilda White Riley Early Stage Investigator Paper Competition recognizes emerging scientists whose research reflect Dr. Matilda White Riley’s vision of research excellence in health-related behavioral and social sciences.

Photo above: Neuroscientist Jessica Cantlon, one of four 2022–2023 James McKeen Cattell Fund Fellowship recipients, explains a math game to a participant. Photo credit: Carnegie Mellon University The James McKeen Cattell Fund has recognized psychological scientists APS Fellow Kenneth Bollen, APS Fellow Jessica Cantlon, Kevin Myers, and APS Fellow Kristin Shutts as recipients of its

The monkey in the popular animated American series Curious George has been a subject of debate worldwide – many believe the monkey has a tail; however, it actually does not. Those who believed the monkey had a tail say they saw him with a dangling tail hanging from trees. Tails are distinctive characteristics of monkeys,

If you think you’re capable of diving deep into rabbit holes, consider psychologist Geir Jordet. He spent five years watching every penalty shootout of every major men’s international soccer tournament (of which the World Cup is the most major) from the past fifty years. He also interviewed 25 of the players involved, and then validated

Why is it that when you have the most to do you feel the least able to act? This sense of helplessness — also called “overwhelm freeze” — always seems to set in when you have a dozen things on your list, all equally pressing. Or it shows up when you have one huge thing

Can what we know about an object change the way we see it? Or the way we feel about it? If so, could that be because different brain areas process different features of any given object, such as what we know about its uses?   In this episode of Under the Cortex, APS’s Ludmila Nunes