Music can really affect your well-being, learning, quality of life, and even happiness. The fact that music can make a difficult task more tolerable may be why students often choose to listen to it while doing their homework. But is listening to music the smart choice for students who want to improve their learning? A new study suggests that for some students, listening to music is a wise strategy, but for others, it isn’t. The effect of music on cognitive (认知的) function appears to depend partly on your personality — specifically, on your need for external stimulation (刺激).

Researchers not only assessed listeners’ personality but also changed the difficulty of the task and the complexity of the music. Participants first completed a personality test used to determine the need for external stimulation. Then, they engaged in an easy cognitive task (searching for the letter A in lists of words) and a more challenging one (remembering word pairs) in order. Participants finished both tasks under one of two sound conditions: (1) no music, (2) with music.

The data suggests that for those with a high need of external stimulation, on the simple task of finding A’s, the scores for the music condition were significantly worse than those for the silent condition. On the complex task of learning word pairs, their performance was worse whenever music was played. For those with a low need of external stimulation, however, on the simple task, such participants’ scores for the music condition were much better than those for the silent condition. On the complex task of learning word pairs, the participants showed a small but reliable benefit when listening to music.

According to the study, there are individual differences in the impact of music on cognitive function. Students who are easily bored and who seek out stimulation should be cautious of adding music to the mix. On the other hand, students with a low need for stimulation may benefit significantly from the presence of music.

With the right personality, the right music and the right task, the presence of music may significantly improve cognitive functioning. Given the benefits of music, subscription to Spotify will be rewarding!

First impressions are important, but are first impressions correct? Personally, I’m not so sure, and according to new research, neither is science.

You really shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but I certainly have, and I’m willing to bet you’ve done it, too. Consider this, though: If I’d let my opinion on, say, the boring cover of John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath stop me from reading this great novel, I would have missed out on one of my favorite books to date. First impressions are important because they can influence you one way or another, but they shouldn’t be the be-all and end-all of your opinion on someone.

According to Jonathan Freeman, a professor at New York University, first impressions are collected within only a few hundred milliseconds and are often based on the person’s facial appearance.

“First impressions of faces can influence how we make decisions about people,” Freeman explained in a statement. Therefore, in order to put an end to such first impressions, you have to understand where your first assumptions come from. In order to do this, a team of researchers in Switzerland performed two experiments: The first required participants (参与者) to judge the personalities of dozens of people only based on photos they were shown online. For example, in this part of the study, researchers took note of how participants related personality features like friendliness with various appearances. The second experiment explored what kind of facial features were connected with exact personality features. For example, someone who has a round face with “babyish features” might be considered as friendlier or more harmless than someone who isn’t smiley in their photo.

The results showed that first impressions often aren’t all right. Look, it’s really unfortunate that first impressions aren’t always right. Still, these first impressions happen regardless of whether or not they’re right, so the best thing you can do is try to put your best foot forward without, of course, giving up your authenticity (真实性); you are exactly who you were meant to be, and all you can do is be the best person you can.

Almost all researches in sleep explain that nightmares are a reaction to negative experiences that happen during waking hours. However, some of them believe that nightmares do have some real benefits. One 2017 study, for example, found that frequent nightmare sufferers rated themselves as more empathetic (共鸣的). They also displayed more of a tendency to unconsciously mirror other people through things like yawning. People who have constant nightmares also tend to think further outside the box on psychoanalysis tasks. Some other researches have found support for the idea that nightmares might be linked to creativity.

People seeking cure for nightmares were not necessarily more fearful or anxious, but rather had a general sensitivity to all emotional experience. Sensitivity is the driving force behind intense dreams. Heightened sensitivity to threats or fear during the day results in had dreams and nightmares, whereas heightened passion or excitement may result in more intense positive dream. And both these forms of dreams may feed back into waking life, perhaps increasing suffering after nightmares, or promoting social bonds and empathy after positive dreams.

The effects go further still. This sensitivity overflows over into perceptions and thoughts: people who have a lot of nightmares experience a dreamlike quality to their waking thoughts. And this kind of thinking seems to give them a creative edge. For instance, studies show that such people tend to have greater creative talent and artistic express. And people who often have nightmares also tend to have more positive dreams than the average person.

The evidence points towards the idea that, rather than disturbing normal activity, people who are unfortunate in having a lot of nightmares also have a dreaming life that is at least as creative, positive and vivid as it can be distressing and terrifying. What’s more, this imaginative richness is unlikely to be limited to sleep, but also is filled with waking thought and daydreams. Even after people wake up and shake off the nightmare, in other words, a mark of it stays behind, possessing them throughout the day.