"One must imagine Sisyphus happy," I mumble to myself as I restart my computer a second time in an attempt to access a file I created on Teams.
Dr. Althea Need Kaminske
@drkaminske.bsky.social
Cognitive psychologist and science communicator. Views are my own. The Learning Scientists: @learningscientists.bsky.social
I have considered learning German because there's a lot of early work in problem solving and decision making in German. If I can't track down a translation of the source, then I don't cite it. A citation of an article means you have read that article to confirm it says what you say it does.
Dr. Holly Walters@manigarm.bsky.social · 4mo agoI'm sorry, what? In writing my first monograph, I spent six weeks trying to track down a citation in TWO languages I didn't know. And good thing too, because the citation was wrong. That's scholarship. That's research. You know, the thing we're trained to do?!?
Full-time salaries for most categories of faculty have remained about the same since 2002, adjusting for inflation, while admin pay soars. Faculty have had enough. We’re fighting back nationwide. ✊🏽✊🏻✊🏿 www.chronicle.com/article/amid...
Todd Wolfson@proftwolf.bsky.social · 5mo ago❤️❤️🔥🔥 CFUUAW
“The VA General Assembly voted to give over half a million public sector workers collective bargaining rights. But not me. I'm an adjunct faculty member who was just left behind to endure the exploitation of higher education.” @abigailspanberger.com, please correct course & add us back in.
Collective Bargaining is One Solution to Ending Higher Ed Worker Exploitation – I Should Know.
One adjunct professor argues that without the legal leverage of collective bargaining, she is a 'sitting duck' for institutions to profit from her expertise while leaving her vulnerable to financial i...
theeduledger.com
Plato is one of the most famous ancient philosophers of all time. He also thought there were more than 2 genders & homosexuality was normal — that's why Texas A&M wants to censor him. "How can a serious research university, an R1 university, censor Plato in a philosophy class?" — Martin Peterson
“The humanities simply don’t fit a corporate model because they are just not monetizable in the same way the sciences or even the social sciences are. And the deeper reason they’re coming under attack is that free thought and rigorous, free inquiry is dangerous to executive power.”
‘Just not monetizable’: humanities programs face existential crisis at US universities
Fears over the future of humanities spread amid layoffs and restructurings at scores of public and private universities
theguardian.com
PSU AAUP@psuaaup.bsky.social · 8mo agoLondon’s The Guardian on our arbitration victory, our colleagues’ reinstatement, and the Cudd administration’s pricey consultant and outside legal counsel driven attacks on Portland State:
The best NYE party I ever went to timed the beat drop with midnight. It was the last time I felt like I was able to dance myself clean.
Denny Carter@dennycarter.bsky.social · 10mo agoMillennials haven’t had easy lives but at least we’ll always have this beat drop at 3:07
I wrote about ADHD in adults this week for The Learning Scientists! I've been thinking about this a lot lately as the standard advice we give to medical students is often counterproductive for ADHD.
The Learning Scientists@learningscientists.bsky.social · 12mo agoNEW BLOG: "Adult Learners with ADHD" by @drkaminske.bsky.social www.learningscientists.org/blog/2025/9/18
NEW POST: "AI and Adolescent Well-Being: New APA Health Advisory" by @drkaminske.bsky.social www.learningscientists.org/blog/2025/6/26
AI and Adolescent Well-Being: New APA Health Advisory — The Learning Scientists
With Artificial Intelligence (AI) applications expanding rapidly into daily life, The American Psychological Association (APA) has issued a health advisory on the impacts of AI on adolescent well-bei...
learningscientists.org
Greebles are back! www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Humans learn generalizable representations through efficient coding - Nature Communications
Reinforcement learning models of human behavior are limited in explaining the capacity for generalization. Here, the authors propose an efficient coding principle for reinforcement learning, whereby a...
nature.com
I'm excited to read this! I've seen a lot of evidence that cardio exercise protects against cognitive decline, and suspected that endurance does too, but that seems trickier to study.
The Lancet@thelancet.com · last yr.🆕 Ageing is associated with cognitive decline & an increased risk of neurodegenerative diseases. A new Review explores the neuroprotective mechanisms of endurance exercise & highlights the importance of cardiorespiratory fitness in healthy brain ageing: tinyurl.com/4asc4wp3 #MedSky
REPOST: Notetaking Formats by @drkaminske.bsky.social www.learningscientists.org/blog/2025/3/28
Notetaking Formats — The Learning Scientists
One of the most common metaphors to describe what the first few years of medical school is like is that it is like drinking water from a fire hose. There is an overwhelming amount of information that ...
learningscientists.org
My 2nd post on AI in education. I explain ways that generative AI can be disruptive to learning while also recognizing that other AI tools exist and, under limited circumstances, might be useful. I just don't think those are the tools that are actually being used when we talk about AI in education.
The Learning Scientists@learningscientists.bsky.social · last yr.NEW POST: "Expert Thinking and AI (Part 2)" by @drkaminske.bsky.social www.learningscientists.org/blog/2025/3/4
Looking through my copy of The Mind's New Science to get a refresher on the history of AI and found this note I wrote to myself as a joke a few years back. It is less funny now. Step 1: Produce intelligent computer. Step 2: ? Step 3: Profit!
About to pack up for the day when I saw an email alert for a new article, "Relationship Between Bullshit, Cognitive Skills, and Belief Systems: A Meta-Analytic Review". Sometimes it's fun being a cognitive psychologist. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
Relationship Between Bullshit, Cognitive Skills, and Belief Systems: A Meta‐Analytic Review
Bullshit—verbal statements with little or no concern for the truth—has sparked a growing interest in individual traits, with an increase in the number of studies aimed at understanding why people are...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
I used to teach a class on critical thinking that covered how language influences thinking. One of the tools of framing that I see most often (mis)used is negation. This headline from last week is an excellent example.
Taking a break from doom-scrolling to get some writing done. Delighted to realize the E.E. Abbott, as in Abbott (1909) the first to conduct experiments on what we now call retrieval practice, was Edwina Eunice Abbott. So many pioneers of memory research were women!
www.unitedformedicalresearch.org/nih-in-your-... This site has info on the economic impact of NIH in your state, if you want to write your senators about this.
NIH In Your State - United For Medical Research
Select a state on the map to see the impact of NIH funding across America.
unitedformedicalresearch.org
Increasingly, when I mention that I study memory, people will ask how to protect against dementia. My response is to 1. talk with your doctor about your risk factors and 2. Advocate for policies that reduce air pollution in your city. www.nature.com/articles/d41...
Air pollution and brain damage: what the science says
Epidemiological studies have linked dirty air to dementia and other brain disorders. Now researchers are trying to determine how pollutants do their damage, and how much harm they cause.
nature.com
NEW POST: "Improving College Student Outcomes with Course Policies that Support Autonomy (Part 2)" by @drsumeracki.bsky.social. www.learningscientists.org/blog/2024/11... #academicsky #edusky
learningscientists.org
NEW POST: "Improving College Student Outcomes with Course Policies that Support Autonomy" by @drsumeracki.bsky.social www.learningscientists.org/blog/2024/11... #edusky #academicsky
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