1 . Maps, number lines, shapes, artwork and other materials tend to cover elementary classroom walls. However, too much of a good thing may end up _______ attention and learning in young children, according to research published in Psychological Science.

Psychology researchers Anna V. Fisher, Karrie E. Godwin and Howard Seltman of Carnegie Mellon University looked at whether classroom displays affected children’s ability to maintain _______ during instruction and to learn the lesson content. They found that children in highly decorated classrooms were more distracted, spent more time off-task and demonstrated smaller learning _______than when the decorations were removed.

“Young children spend a lot of time — usually the whole day — in the same classroom, and we have shown that a classroom’s _______ environment can affect how much children learn,” said Fisher, lead author and associate professor of psychology in the Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences.

Should teachers _______ their visual displays based on the findings of this study?

“We do not suggest by any means that this is the answer to all _______ problems. Furthermore,_______ research is needed to know what effect the classroom visual environment has on children’s attention and learning in real classrooms,” Fisher said. “_______, I would suggest that instead of removing all decorations, teachers should consider whether some of their visual displays do make it difficult for young children to _______.”

For the study, 24 kindergarten students were placed in ________classrooms for six introductory science lessons on topics they were unfamiliar with. Three lessons were taught in a heavily decorated classroom, and three lessons were given in a sparse (稀疏的) classroom. The results showed that while children learned in both __________ types, they learned more when the room was not heavily decorated. Specifically, children’s __________ on the test questions was higher in the sparse classroom (55% correct) than in the decorated classroom (42% correct).

“We were also interested in finding out if the visual displays were removed, whether the children’s attention would __________ to another distraction, such as talking to their peers, or the total amount of time they were distracted would remain the same,” said Godwin, a Ph.D. candidate in psychology and fellow of the Program in Interdisciplinary Education Research.

However, when the researchers totaled all of the time children spent off-task in both types of classrooms, the rate of off-task __________ was higher in the decorated classroom (38.6% time spent off-task) than in the sparse classroom (28.4% time spent off-task).

The researchers hope these findings will lead to further studies into developing guidelines to help teachers design classrooms __________.

2 . Large Study Details Years of Brain Changes in Alzheimer’s Patients

A long-term study in China has shown that a series of changes take place in the brains of people who get Alzheimer’s disease long before they present signs of the sickness.

    1     The individuals were examined on a regular basis during that period. The researchers used brain imaging, spinal fluid (脊髓液) checks and other tools to collect data.

The researchers reported that the study subjects who later developed Alzheimer’s showed high levels of disease-linked protein in their spinal fluid.     2     Then every few years, the study detected another so-called biomarker of coming trouble.

Scientists still do not know exactly how Alzheimer’s forms. The disease slowly destroys the brain, affecting the ability to think. Alzheimer’s patients develop proteins called beta-amyloid and tau, which over time build up into plaques (斑块) that block brain processes. The new research, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, offers a timeline for how these proteins develop.

Scientists already knew that in rare, genetic forms of Alzheimer’s that affect young people, a poisonous form of amyloid starts developing about 20 years ahead of symptoms. At some point after that, tau develops as well.     3    

“The more we know about Alzheimer’s treatment targets and when to address them, the better and faster we will be able to develop new therapies and preventions,” said Claire Sexton, director of scientific programs with the Alzheimer’s Association. She noted that blood tests are coming soon that promise to also help by making it easier to find amyloid and tau.

More than 6 million Americans, and millions more worldwide, have Alzheimer’s. There is no cure. But last year, Leqembi became the first approved drug that could slow the worsening of early Alzheimer’s for a few months.     4     Other drugs are being developed to target tau.

Microplastics: Out of Sight, Out of Mind?

People joke that someone suffering from paranoia (妄想症) sees danger everywhere, thinking someone is out to get him. In the case of microplastics, you don’t need to have paranoia to be worried about them being everywhere, because they basically are!

What exactly are microplastics? They are particles (颗粒) of any type of plastic that are less than 5 millimeters in diameter (直径). They have resulted from the plastic pollution widespread in the world today.

When plastic is exposed to environmental forces, it breaks down into these tiny particles, which, in turn, do not disappear but continue to exist for hundreds or even thousands of years. Every piece of plastic that has ever been made is still on Earth today, except for what has been burned. Often mistaken for food, plastics and microplastics in oceans and on beaches are often consumed by marine animals, which is harmful. Research has linked microplastics to cancer and other problems in animals.

Whatever you think about these particles, taking them in is easier than you think. When you heat food in a plastic dish in the microwave, microplastics get into your food. The water from a plastic water bottle contains the particles as well. After taking surveys of microplastics in air, water and seafood, scientists estimate that people may easily be eating 5 grams of plastic a week. Researchers don’t know yet if or how this will affect humans. Microplastics have been found in human tissue samples, and no one yet knows how long they stay in the human body or what problems may arise.

Not until the amount of plastic waste in the world is reduced will microplastics decrease. So, while the evidence is still missing of the effect microplastics have on people’s health, reusing and recycling plastic is a no-brainer.

9 . For a long time, psychologists agreed with the findings of Roy Baumeister, whose research showed that willpower was a limited resource that could easily be exhausted through use. His book, Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength, has long been seen as the typical handbook on this subject. Plus, hundreds of experiments showed that when people had to complete two back-to-back tasks which both required willpower, they would demonstrate less willpower on the second task.

From this research, willpower came to be understood as a “brain muscle” that would grow more tired the longer you used it. With adequate rest and recovery, the muscle’s energy would be restored, and willpower levels would return to normal. This made sense and even opened the door for an optimistic long-term approach to willpower: You could improve your willpower by using it regularly, just as you can strengthen a muscle through exercise.

However, just because an idea sounds good doesn’t mean it’s true. Later research failed to find Baumeister’s willpower exhaustion effect. And other research even showed that willpower exhaustion can be reversed if you have a positive belief about what hard work does for you. If you believe using willpower is draining, you’ll experience it as draining, but if you believe it energizes you, you’ll be energized. In other words, what you believe about willpower might be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The trouble is that studying a psychological quality like willpower in the lab is very difficult. Willpower experiments greatly oversimplify the human experience and don’t reflect how willpower is used in the real world. Sample sizes are usually small because of limited funding, and it’s difficult to find diverse subjects. It almost certainly matters how meaningful the willpower-requiring task is to the person doing it, and laboratory experiments generally don’t ask participants to perform meaningful tasks.

Furthermore, there are a great many factors that can affect how much willpower an individual has. Willpower levels change from moment to moment and day to day. Someone who has excellent willpower in one situation might have terrible willpower in another. You might have high self-control one day and low self-control another.

So we just don’t know how willpower really works, and we might never know. People may or may not have a limited amount of willpower. Believing you have unlimited willpower might help you work harder than you otherwise would, or it might lead to overconfidence.

10 . On a rainy afternoon in Aspinwall, Pennsylvania, a group of amateur musicians gathered to lay down a few tracks. This wasn’t the first time the band had performed together, but it was their first time in a recording studio.

The band, which calls itself Infinity, first performed its work at the 2022 Pittsburgh Schizophrenia Conference in November. All four band members are diagnosed with schizophrenia, a mental disorder that can cause people to interpret reality in abnormal ways, which can cause many kinds of disordered thinking.

Infinity formed five years ago when Flavio Chamis, a Brazilian composer and conductor, began working with the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) on how to use music to treat mental illness.

“Having a mental health diagnosis is not a reason to not have a creative life,” Chamis said. Schizophrenia can be disabling, but therapy, medication and even playing music can help, according to a growing body of research.

Chamis and K.N. Roy Chengappa, a professor of psychiatry (精神病学) at UPMC Western Psychiatric Hospital and the director of Pittsburgh’s schizophrenia conference, are continuing their efforts with the four musicians and to further investigate musical interventions in mental health outcomes.

As imaging techniques advance, scientists are working to answer precisely why music affects the brain in the ways that it does. Playing music seems to have an impact on timing systems in the brain, which are affected by major depression, schizophrenia and other illnesses. There is research indicating that training patients to play in rhythm can in fact help retrain the brain in other, less obvious ways. Interventions tend to have positive effects, but the research is still in early stages.

The band doesn’t have much formal music training, but they played and sang with touching sincerity. “It’s not supposed to be professional or perfect,” Chengappa said. “One of them has been my patient for 20 years. ... They’ve really blossomed.”

Chamis led the Infinity recording from the piano, with each musician in a separate sound-proof room listening to one another on headphones. The conductor and composer encouraged the musicians and gave advice after each take.

“It’s been great working on this with Flavio,” said guitarist David Baird. “I loved feeling like a professional. ... I want more.”