First the link to this week’s complete list as HTML and as PDF.
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I have to endure enough junk as it is and I’d never want to read non peer reviewed publications if I can avoid it. That said Balietti et al. point out one of the downsides of the current review process and add one more voice to the choir looking for improvements.
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There are two sides to the quest for equality, equality of outcome and equality of opportunity. It seems to me, that what Seligman et al. are asking for is the former and I’m not sure I want to see limited funds diverted in that direction.
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I fail to understand most of the finer points in Travaglia et al., but they seem to confirm what some psychologists have always maintained: totally forgotten memories from very early childhood may be subconsciously maintained and can have a lasting influence on later life.
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If, as they quote, “letter knowledge [is] a preschool predictor of later reading ability”
, this finding has two obvious possible causes: a) The abilities that lead to superior later reading skills also make children pick up letters precociously in early life, and b) teaching letters to children at an early preschool age helps them form connections in the brain that later make them acquire reading skills more easily and thoroughly. Lochy et al.’s new results seem to point to the second of those mechanisms, with strong implications for parents and educators.