readings in psychology for february 2 2011

spring has come to san luis obispo, california

Here is what I am reading today:

• video games are good for girls if their parents play along

“Dads who still haven’t given up video games now have some justification to keep on playing — if they have a daughter.”

• we store memories selectively when we sleep

“After a good night’s sleep, people remember information better when they know it will be useful in the future, according to a new study in the Feb. 2 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience. The findings suggest that the brain evaluates memories during sleep and preferentially retains the ones that are most relevant.”

• do chimpanzees mourn their dead?

“For the first time, researchers of the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in the Netherlands report in detail how a chimpanzee mother responds to the death of her infant. The chimpanzee mother shows behaviours not typically seen directed toward live infants, such as placing her fingers against the neck and laying the infant’s body on the ground to watch it from a distance. The observations of Katherine Cronin and her team provide unique insights into how chimpanzees, one of humans’ closest primate relatives, learn about death.”

• an early spring?

“The world’s most famous groundhog predicted an early spring Wednesday, but wasn’t willing to go out on a limb to forecast whether the nearby Pittsburgh Steelers will win Sunday’s Super Bowl.”