Studies have shown that children do not accurately use landmarks to orient themselves until about the age of six but those studies were done in an artificial environment. A new study taking place in a natural environment disputes that finding and says even children as young as three use 'reorientation.'

Reorientation is using things around us to regain our bearings.

Dr Alastair Smith from the Department of Experimental Psychology and colleagues from his department and the Department of Computer Science at the University of Bristol have tested the ability of children aged between three and seven to orient themselves in the great outdoors.

Why do some people solve problems more creatively than others? Are people who think creatively somehow different from those who tend to think in a more methodical fashion?

These questions are part of a long-standing debate, with some researchers arguing that what we call “creative thought” and “noncreative thought” are not basically different. If this is the case, then people who are thought of as creative do not really think in a fundamentally different way from those who are thought of as noncreative. On the other side of this debate, some researchers have argued that creative thought is fundamentally different from other forms of thought. If this is true, then those who tend to think creatively really are somehow different.

Deep brain stimulation (DBS) surgery, which is used to treat Parkinson’s disease and other movement disorders, is now being studied for its potential to treat a variety of conditions. For example, DBS of the hypothalamus has been used to treat cluster headaches and aggressiveness in humans, and stimulating this area influences feeding behavior in animals.

A new study in the Annals of Neurology found that hypothalamic DBS performed in the treatment of a patient with morbid obesity unexpectedly evoked detailed autobiographical memories.

Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), scientists have discovered that cocaine-related images trigger the emotional centers of the brains of patients addicted to drugs, even when the subjects are unaware they’ve seen anything - and the regions of the brain activated by drug images overlapped substantially with those activated by sexual ones.

A team of researchers at the University of Pennsylvania, led by Dr. Anna Rose Childress and Dr. Charles O’Brien, showed cocaine patients photos of drug-related cues like crack pipes and chunks of cocaine. The images flashed by in just 33 milliseconds - so quickly that the patients were not consciously aware of seeing them.

Plasticity, the brain's ability to change in response to its environment, is at the heart of learning. After being awake, your brain needs sleep to refresh, research says.

A new theory from University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers Dr. Chiara Cirelli, associate professor of psychiatry, and Dr. Giulio Tononi, professor of psychiatry, called the synaptic homeostasis hypothesis, runs against the grain of what many scientists currently think about how sleep affects learning. The most popular notion these days, says Cirelli, is that during sleep synapses are hard at work replaying the information acquired during the previous waking hours, consolidating that information by becoming even stronger.

Why is it difficult to pick out even a familiar face in a crowd? We all experience this, but the phenomenon has been poorly understood until now.

The results of a recent study may have implications for individuals with face-recognition disorders and visual-attention related ailments — and eventually could help scientists develop an artificial visual system that approaches the sophistication of human visual perception.

The study is part of a recently completed Journal of Vision special issue titled “Crowding: Including illusory conjunctions, surround suppression, and attention”. “Crowding” is a failure to recognize an individual object in a cluttered environment.

Bisexuality in women appears to be a distinctive sexual orientation and not a transitional stage that some women adopt "on their way" to lesbianism or as a temporary phase in otherwise heterosexual behavior, according to new research in Developmental Psychology.

The study of 79 non-heterosexual women over 10 years found that bisexual women maintained a stable pattern of attraction to both sexes.

Population studies indicate that up to 90 percent of cases of autism and what are referred to as autism spectrum disorders have some genetic component, but only 10 percent of cases can be attributed to known genetic and chromosomal syndromes.

Since several of those conditions involve deletions or duplications of chromosomal segments – including an inherited deletion of a region of chromosome 15 – investigators have conducted a complete genome scan of samples from the Autism Genome Research Exchange, which contains DNA from families in which at least one child has autism or a related disorder.

Most children are able to imagine their future selves as astronauts, politicians or even superheroes; however, many older adults find it difficult to recollect past events, let alone generate new ones. A new Harvard University study reveals that the ability of older adults to form imaginary scenarios is linked to their ability to recall detailed memories.

According to the study, episodic memory, which represents our personal memories of past experiences, “allows individuals to project themselves both backward and forward in subjective time.”

Psychologists at Harvard University using neuroimaging say they have resolved the century-old debate over the existence of Extra-Sensory Perception(ESP) - and it doesn't exist.

The research was led by Samuel Moulton, a graduate student in the department of psychology in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University with Stephen Kosslyn, John Lindsley Professor of Psychology at Harvard and was published in the Jan. 2008 issue of the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience. The scientists used brain scanning to test whether individuals have knowledge that cannot be explained through normal perceptual processing.

"If any ESP processes exist, then participants' brains should respond differently to ESP and non-ESP stimuli," explains Moulton.