Why You Can’t Trust Your Brain or Anyone Around You

By Robert Dragani and Hannah Kaczala

No college student is a stranger to the stress of exams. But sometimes we get lucky, and after hours of cramming, you might find a question on an exam that you know you studied; you specifically remember it from the study session. You confidently answer and feel accomplished in your study skills. A few weeks later, when your professor finally hands back your graded exam, you are flabbergasted that the question you thought you nailed was marked incorrect. You crack open your textbook, because you’re sure you had it right. The book takes your teacher’s side and you wonder where in your learning you got mixed up. Does this sound familiar to you? If so, you might have fallen victim to what psychologists call the Misinformation Effect.  

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Don’t Ignore the Voices: They Could Be Helpful *insert suspenseful music*

By Joseph Contezac and Darlene Valdez

If you go in any coffee shop or public place on a college campus other than the library, you will see students studying and chatting with their friends. But is chatting while you study preventing you from remembering key info on that test you are studying for? Though studying with a partner has been shown to actually help with remembering information, simply chatting about everyday things while you study is a distraction that is anything, but helpful to your academic success. Due to the amount of media we consume and how readily available it is, millennials have adopted “strategies” for multitasking. Millennials in general, are all about multitasking, especially when the amount of work you have is not equal to the amount of time you have to do it. Focusing more on chatting and studying, it is important to note the reasons why this might be affecting your ability to remember key material. It all comes down to the concepts of divided attention, and the distinction between on-topic and off-topic conversation.

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