Life & Letters Magazine

Department of Psychology

A Language for Big Data Neuroscience

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Imagine your brain activity displayed on a computer screen — multiple, bustling tabs open, some sparked by a fleeting thought, others derived from prior or underlying behaviors or features. Now imagine a scientist trying to make sense of that activity.

The Misinformation Age

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Depending on whom you ask, conspiracy theories are either having a heyday or it’s just business as usual. But whether or not there is a long-term increase happening, certain factors likely influence the ebb and flow of conspiratorial beliefs.

Making the Most of Self-Care

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March marked the one-year anniversary of the WHO declaring COVID-19 a global pandemic, and to say that it’s been a rough year would be an understatement. Whether we’ve lost loved ones, jobs, or simply the ability to distinguish between Sundays and Mondays, everyone is struggling under the weight of a constantly shifting “new normal.”

Rebooting Our Lives After COVID-19

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The world’s new reality amid the COVID-19 pandemic is forcing us to confront issues and critically think about how to revive communities slowly, safely and sustainably.

Breakthroughs in Brain Health: We’re Closer Than You Think

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It might not seem like it when you’ve forgotten your email password for the third time in as many days, but your brain is capable of amazing things. It can instantly process the intricate sensory inputs needed to understand the world while simultaneously conducting motor neurons to navigate these landscapes. It can read complex emotions […]

Here Comes the Song: The Personalities Behind Your Favorite Beatles Lyrics

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If Paul McCartney would have written “Yesterday” based on the first words that came to his mind, the song would sound like a concupiscent teen singing about breakfast: Scrambled eggs, oh, my baby, how I love your legs… The melody of the song, which has been broadcasted on American radio more than 7 million times […]

Rising to the Challenge 

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Five years ago we opened the doors to a new College of Liberal Arts Building in the heart of campus. It was a milestone event, marking the first time students in our college had a place to call home. Departments and other units once scattered across campus were brought together in new collaborative spaces, as […]

Fashion Meets Function

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Though an avid cyclist, Gloria Hwang was never a fan of helmets, referring to them as “sci-fi” nuisances. But after losing a friend through a cycling accident, her perspective changed. Hwang, a psychology alumna, says her mission in founding and launching Thousand, a new brand of cycling helmets, was to save lives, noting that there are […]

Can We Talk?: Why Discourse is Dying in America

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I’ll have to admit that I was a bit perplexed when I heard linguistic anthropologist Elizabeth Keating say, “There is a very strong preference for agreement in conversation in the U.S.” I couldn’t believe my ears — even the Pew Research Center pegged political polarization as the defining feature of modern U.S. politics. And it’s […]

First Class: Rethinking Health Care Through the Liberal Arts

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The doors of the Dell Medical School have opened for its first class of future doctors, and they are on a mission to get the training they need to make a difference in the lives of future patients, their communities and even medicine itself. Of the 50 members in the school’s inaugural class, three graduated […]

The Campaign for Your Vote: Just Add Brand Power

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After months of being bombarded by pollsters, campaign ads and the most outlandish sound bites on repeat, the moment will come for you to finally cast your ballot. Whom will you choose? “The presidency is the one office that represents the American people: all their wishes, dreams, desires, hopes, fears and everything else,” says history […]

Forever Shakespeare: The Making of an Icon

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Editor’s note: As the 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare’s death approaches, five UT Austin scholars share how they celebrate his work and his ultimate staying power. In 10 years, people won’t care about Kim Kardashian’s face-contouring regimen or that she had 35 million Twitter followers. But William Shakespeare? Four centuries after his death he’s still […]

Give it a Rest

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Scientists have already established that resting the mind, as in daydreaming, helps strengthen memories of events and retention of information, but in a new twist, UT Austin researchers have found that the right kind of mental rest and reflection can actually help boost future learning. How our brains capture and store new information is heavily […]

Depression: Making Treatment Personal

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For the estimated 350 million people worldwide who suffer from depression, the health consequences go far beyond “feeling down.” In fact, it is a leading cause of disability worldwide, according to the World Health Organization. Unfortunately, the vast majority of people with symptoms of depression will never receive treatment, and for those diagnosed with major […]