Psychology students show off fourth-year research projects

Students Angela Deotto and Lilly Solomon recognized for poster projects If you were wandering through Vari Hall last Wednesday afternoon, you could have stopped and chatted with fourth-year psychology students about some pretty esoteric subjects. The rotunda was a maze of posters featuring the thesis projects of 78 students ready to explain whether eating disturbances are symptoms of depression, how to […]

Professor Ellen Bialystok interviewed in The Wall Street Journal about building more resilient brains

A lifetime of speaking two or more languages appears to pay off in old age, with recent research showing the symptoms of dementia can be delayed by an average of four years in bilingual people, wrote The Wall Street Journal online Oct. 11: Over time, regularly speaking more than one language appears to strengthen skills […]

Why some smart people do dumb things: Professor Maggie Toplak on intelligence and rationality

Why is it that some smart people do really dumb things? That’s the question York psychology Professor Maggie Toplak is trying to answer through her research on rationality. What she’s found is that intelligence as measured by IQ tests is not the same as rationality or a rationality quotient (RQ). “There’s a folk idea that […]

Ontario's lieutenant governor visits York's Milton & Ethel Harris Research Initiative

The Milton & Ethel Harris Research Initiative (MEHRI) explores the critical role of the caregiving environment in the evolution and development of language, intelligence, social skills and reflective consciousness in children. During a recent conversation with York University President & Vice-Chancellor Mamdouh Shoukri, the Lieutenant Governor of Ontario, David Onley (Hon. LLD '09), expressed an interest in the research initiative. […]

Killam Prize winner Professor Ellen Bialystok interviewed by Globe & Mail

Professor Ellen Bialystok was interviewed by The Globe and Mail April 14 about winning the Killam Prize and her award-winning research in bilingualism and brain development across the human lifespan: Distinguished Research Professor of Psychology Ellen Bialystok, of York's Faculty of Health, is one of five scholars to be awarded this year’s Killam Prize in […]

Audio: York developmental psychology professor speaks to Metro Morning about winning the Killam Prize

York University Professor Ellen Bialystok spoke to CBC's "Metro Morning" April 14 about winning the prestigious Killam Prize for outstanding career achievement. The award provides five winners with $100,000 to support their research. Bialystok, a Distinguished Research Professor in York’s Department of Psychology, Faculty of Health, is known internationally for her research on language, bilingualism […]

York developmental psychology professor wins Killam Prize

York University Professor Ellen Bialystok has been awarded the prestigious Killam Prize for outstanding career achievement. Bialystok, a Distinguished Research Professor in York’s Department of Psychology, Faculty of Health, is known internationally for her research on language, bilingualism and cognitive development. She received the award this morning from the Canada Council for the Arts, which […]

York psychology prof awarded Sloan Research Fellowship to study episodic memory

York psychology Professor Shayna Rosenbaum has been awarded a 2010 Sloan Research Fellowship, which she says will help take her work on episodic memory to a new level, not otherwise possible at this early stage in her career. “The award provides me and my students with the flexibility to continue a line of research that […]

Listen to York PhD student describe research on babies and manipulation

Heidi Marsh's study about infants reading and interpreting the intentions of adults as early as six or nine months was featured on Saturday, February 13, 2010 on CBC's Quirks & Quarks, hosted by Bob McDonald. Download the podcast to hear Marsh, a psychology PhD candidate in the Faculty of Health at York's Centre for Infancy […]

Think baby knows when you tease? Study from Centre for Infancy Studies says six-month-olds know difference between play and teasing

A study by York University researchers reveals that infants as young as six months old know when we’re “playing” them – and they don’t like it. Researchers in York’s Centre for Infancy Studies examined six- and nine-month-old babies’ reactions to a game in which an experimenter was either unable or unwilling to share a toy. […]