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A smartphone training program, specifically designed for those with moderate-to-severe memory impairment, was found to significantly improve day-to-day functioning in a small study.

While smartphones and other digital assistants have been found to help people with mild memory impairment, their use by those with greater impairment has been less successful.

Comparing performance on an IQ test when it is given under normal conditions and when it is given in a group situation reveals that IQ drops in a group setting, and for some (mostly women) it drops dramatically.

This is another demonstration of stereotype threat, which is also a nice demonstration of the contextual nature of intelligence. The study involved 70 volunteers (average age 25; range 18-49), who were put in groups of 5.

While sports training benefits the spatial skills of both men and women, music training closes the gender gap by only helping women.

I talked recently about how the well-established difference in spatial ability between men and women apparently has a lot to do with confidence. I also mentioned in passing that previous research has shown that training can close the gender gap.

Rosemary is a herb long associated with memory. A small study now provides some support for the association, and for the possible benefits of aromatherapy. And a rat study indicates that your attitude to work might change how stimulants affect you.

A small study involving 20 people has found that those who were exposed to 1,8-cineole, one of the main chemical components of rosemary essential oil, performed better on mental arithmetic tasks.

A series of experiments has found that confidence fully accounted for women’s poorer performance on a mental rotation task.

One of the few established cognitive differences between men and women lies in spatial ability. But in recent years, this ‘fact’ has been shaken by evidence that training can close the gap between the genders.

Whether corrections to students’ misconceptions ‘stick’ depends on the strength of the memory of the correction.

Students come into classrooms filled with inaccurate knowledge they are confident is correct, and overcoming these misconceptions is notoriously difficult. In recent years, research has shown that such false knowledge can be corrected with feedback.

More evidence that music training protects older adults from age-related impairment in understanding speech, adding to the potential benefits of music training in preventing dementia.

I’ve spoken before about the association between hearing loss in old age and dementia risk.

A study showing that those with ASD are less likely to use inner speech when planning their actions, a failure linked to their communication ability, has implications for us all.

I’ve reported before on evidence that young children do better on motor tasks when they talk to themselves out loud, and learn better when they explain things to themselves or (even better) their mother

A program designed to improve reasoning ability in older adults also increased their openness to new experiences.

Openness to experience – being flexible and creative, embracing new ideas and taking on challenging intellectual or cultural pursuits – is one of the ‘Big 5’ personality traits. Unlike the other four, it shows some correlation with cognitive abilities.

Those learning a new language benefit from making suitable gestures as they repeat new vocabulary, and this can even extend to gestures arbitrarily linked to abstract adverbs.

I always like gesture studies. I think I’m probably right in saying that they started with language learning. Way back in 1980 it was shown that acting out action phrases meant they were remembered better than if the phrases had been only heard or read (the “enactment effect”).

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