Use of Representations in Reasoning and Problem Solving

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1. Greater religiosity during adolescence may protect against developing problem alcohol use
   Phenotypes are measurable and/or observable traits or behaviors. The heritability of an alcohol-related phenotype depends upon the social environment within which it is measured, such as urbanicity, marital status, or religiosity. A new study of the effects of religiosity on the genetic variance of problem alcohol use in males and females has found that religiosity can moderate genetic effects on
2. Dan Ariely on the psychology of cheating
   Behavioural economist Dan Ariely gives a fantastic 15 minute TED lecture on the psychology of cheating that explores numerous fascinating and counter-intuitive influences on how we bend the truth for personal benefit.Ariely discusses some curious social influences, including the fact that seeing someone else cheat may actually decrease the general cheating of the group, but only if they perceive
3. The Value of Play II: How Play Promotes Reasoning in Children and Adults
   Twenty years ago, a pair of researchers in England reported on a series of experiments in which they showed that very young children could, in the context of play, solve logic problems that they seemed unable to solve in a serious context.The problems they used were syllogisms, the classic type of logic problem described originally by Aristotle. A syllogism requires a person to combine the inform
4. Religulous: This film's problem is fundamental (Independent)
   There is plenty to enjoy in Bill Maher's Religulous, the feature-length documentary released here on Friday, in which the American comedian takes on religious fundamentalism. However, it does feel a bit lightweight, given the importance of the subject. At one point, he dismisses Pascal's Wager [that it's beneficial to "bet" that God exists] as "not a serious argument", which is a tad cursory, ...
5. Bias we can believe in
   Time magazine has a recent article on how the Obama team are making behavioural economics the centre of their financial policies in the hope of altering the behaviour of US citizens. But where are the sceptical voices?Behavioural economics is primarily an academic discipline where researchers investigate how our cognitive biases divert us from strictly rational reasoning and affect our financial