How Olympians train their brain

Nicole Forrester is an Olympian who competed for Canada in the high jump at the 2008 Summer Games. She’s also an assistant professor at Ryerson and a member with the Canadian Sport Psychology Association. Prof. Forrester has been a prolific author for us since the Pyeongchang Olympics started two weeks ago, writing three articles. (And she may have one more before the Games are done.)

Today in The Conversation Canada, Prof. Forrester looks at how athletes train their brains for the mental toughness necessary to perform on the world’s biggest stage. “Mental toughness is essentially a constellation of various mental skills, including unshakeable self-belief, resiliency, motivation, focus and the ability to perform under pressure, as well as to manage physical and emotional pain,” she writes.

The connection between humans and computers is getting closer every day. Stefanie Blain-Moraes, an assistant professor of physical and occupational therapy at McGill University, says advances in computers being able to read human emotions could some day provide cues to an autistic individual about the emotional state of people they are communicating with.

Three University of Guelph professors - Jeffrey R. Spence, David Stanley and Ian Newby-Clark - take a look at how academia deals with research that can’t be replicated because of bad research techniques. One solution to fix the problem: making sure students don’t pick up bad research habits.

And finally, Donald Trump has been promising to revamp the U.S. immigration system and has pointed to a merit-based, Canada-style system. But Mireille Paquet of Concordia University suggests merit-based immigration may not be the best solution to address all the complex immigration issues facing the United States.

Regards,

Scott White

Editor

Today's Featured Articles
Olympic gold medallists Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir of Canada are artists on ice, but behind their performance is years of training to be mentally tough during competition. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Paul Chiasson

How Olympians train their brains to become mentally tough

Nicole W. Forrester, Ryerson University

For any athlete to deliver a gold medal performance, mental toughness is an essential ingredient. But what exactly is mental toughness — and how does an athlete develop it?
‘Biomusic’ technology collects autonomic nervous system signals, such as heart rate, through a wearable sensor and maps them to sound. (Shutterstock)

How we can design the music of our emotions

Stefanie Blain-Moraes, McGill University

Imagine a collaboratively-designed smartphone app that could provide cues to an autistic individual -- about the emotional state of people they are communicating with.
Shutterstock.

Why students are the answer to psychology's replication crisis

Jeffrey R. Spence, University of Guelph; David Stanley, University of Guelph; Ian Newby-Clark, University of Guelph

Bad research techniques have called into question the results of many psychology studies. Fixing the problem starts with making sure students don't pick up bad habits.
U.S. President Donald Trump points to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as he welcomes him to the White House in Washington, D.C. in October 2017. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick

Canada's merit-based immigration system is no 'magic bullet'

Mireille Paquet, Concordia University

Canada's experience shows that selecting immigrants based on economic merit is not a silver bullet; finding the "right" immigrants is the only the first step.

Health + Medicine

  • Parents, stop nagging kids not to forget – set visual cues instead

    Adam Bulley, The University of Queensland; Jonathan Redshaw, The University of Queensland; Sam Gilbert, UCL

    Instead of nagging younger kids "not to forget", and trusting the power of the child’s developing memory alone, try to help them "offload" as much of the work as possible.

Culture + Society

Science + Technology