Unfold, a UC Davis podcast, recently launched its third season with College of Letters and Science researchers talking about “Why Is That Song Stuck in My Head?” The episode examines music, memory and what "earworms" — those songs that get stuck in your head — can teach us about how the brain works.
A new brain imaging study from the Center for Neuroscience at UC Davis shows that the hippocampus is the brain’s storyteller, connecting separate, distant events into a single narrative.
How do we make decisions about a situation we have not encountered before? New work from the UC Davis Center for Mind and Brain shows that we can solve abstract problems in the same way that we can find a novel route between two known locations — by using an internal cognitive map. The work was published Aug. 31 in the journal Nature Neuroscience.
Teens who have lived in poverty experience physical signs of stress at higher levels than those in more economically secure families, showing that public policy programs that help alleviate poverty can improve psychological and physical health even in pre-adulthood, researchers suggest.
A book co-authored by UC Davis psychology professor Lisa Oakes, "Developmental Cascades: Building the Infant Mind," has been named the winner of the 2022 Eleanor Maccoby Book Award from the American Psychological Association’s Developmental Psychology Division.
Two undergraduate students, a professor and a graduate student in the UC Davis College of Letters and Science recently received 2021 Chancellor’s Awards for Excellence in Undergraduate Research. Since 1994, these awards have recognized outstanding undergraduate students for their research, scholarship or creative activity and faculty, graduate students and postdoctorate individuals for excellence in mentorship.
Camelia Hostinar, an assistant professor of psychology, will receive an American Psychological Association early career award for her research investigating how poverty influences children’s development.
If you have watched TV since the ’90s, the sitcom theme song, “I’ll Be There For You,” has likely been stuck in your head at one point or another. New research from UC Davis suggests these experiences are more than a passing nuisance — they play an important role in helping memories form, not only for the song, but also related life events like hanging out with friends — or watching other people hang with their friends on the ’90s television show, "Friends."
Five faculty members have received 2021 College of Letters and Science Teaching Awards. The awards recognize outstanding teaching on the undergraduate and graduate levels, both inside and outside the classroom.
Seven capstone seminars in the UC Davis College of Letters and Science this quarter have offered seniors the option of attending in person instead of online. For most of the students — and their professors — the seminars are their first in-person courses since pandemic precautions shut down the campus more than a year ago.
