Psychology

After the horrific mass murder at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2011, a conservative commentator claimed that “guns don’t kill people—the mentally ill do.” Metzl believes this attitude is based on misconceptions about mental illness and violence that obscure larger issues about gun violence in America. Read More

The odds that a person who suffers from severe, nonchronic depression will recover improve substantially when treated by drugs and therapy. Read More

A new brain study has identified the brain mechanisms that underlie our judgment of how severely a person who has harmed another should be punished. Read More

In a new study published in the Journal of Neuroscience, Vanderbilt psychologists Robert Reinhart, a Ph.D. candidate, and Geoffrey Woodman, assistant professor of psychology, show that it is possible to selectively manipulate our ability to learn through the application of a mild electrical current to the brain, and that this… Read More

When a mass shooting occurs there are often two camps of thought: those who feel the country needs stronger gun laws and those who blame the horrific act on mental illness. Read More

In the latest VUCast: See how an international student is showcasing the United States in a beautiful way; discover how a "thinking cap" could help you learn; and watch a unique forest grow in just one weekend. All this and more in the latest VUCast, Vanderbilt's online newscast. Watch now. Read More

Vanderbilt psychologists show it is possible to selectively manipulate our ability to learn through the application of a mild electrical current to the brain, and that this effect can be enhanced or depressed depending on the direction of the current. Read More

A brain-mapping study of patients with schizophrenia has found that areas associated with the ability to imitate are impaired, providing new support for the theory that deficits in this basic cognitive skill may underlie the profound difficulty with social interactions that characterize the disorder. Read More

The original thesis of John Ridley Stroop, who discovered one of the most famous tasks in cognitive psychology while studying for his doctoral degree at Peabody College, was donated to Vanderbilt by his son Fred. Read More

A study has found that the time it takes neural networks in the brain to make decisions is remarkably stable regardless of size: a finding that could make it easier to achieve the goal of the President's BRAIN Initiative established last spring. Read More

A new study has found that skilled typists can’t identify the positions of many of the keys on the QWERTY keyboard and that novice typists don’t appear to learn key locations in the first place. Read More

With the help of computerized eye trackers, new research finds that at least 50 percent of people can see the movement of their own hand even in the absence of all light. Read More

See how a wireless capsule could help during minimally invasive surgeries Why magnesium and vitamin D are a match made in heaven And do you really see the S in the USA network logo? Watch this QuickVU roundup of research stories. [vucastblurb]… Read More

New research by postdoctoral fellow Kaitlin Toner suggests liberals and conservatives are about equally convinced of the correctness of their views, but extremists are more likely than moderates to feel their views are superior. Read More

Neuroscientists have identified the location in the brain's visual cortex responsible for generating a common perceptual illusion: seeing shapes and surfaces that don't really exist when viewing a fragmented background. Read More

A team of Vanderbilt researchers has provided important validation of maps of the brain at rest that may offer insights into changes in the brain that occur in neurological and psychiatric diseases. Read More

What exactly pushed Christopher Columbus to embark on a voyage across the Atlantic, or Edward Jenner to test his theory for an early smallpox vaccine on a child, or Henry Ford to bet that automobiles could replace horses? David Zald, professor of psychology, studies risk-taking and is quoted. Read More

Young children—even toddlers—are spending more and more time with digital technology. What will it mean for their development? Georgene Troseth, associate professor of psychology, has studied how toddlers interact with screens and is quoted. Read More

Through a set of experiments, Gordon Logan, Nashville musician Jerry Kimbrough and Matthew Crump (now of Brooklyn College-CUNY) have illustrated that guitarists – and players of other related instruments like mandolin, banjo and bass – tend to acquire their skills differently than most other musicians. Read More

A new study demonstrates how the brain follows Ben Franklin’s famous dictum, “Take time for all things: great haste makes great waste.” Read More