Illustrations can help remember specific actions but do not always make abstract ideas easier to learn. Researchers from HSE University and Humboldt University compared how people learn from texts with different levels of abstractness. They found that participants remembered illustrations better and performed better on related tasks after reading a multimedia text about yoga asanas than after reading an abstract text about the Nash equilibrium. The findings could help improve the selection of illustrations for educational and informational materials. The study has been published in Learning and Instruction.
When Tatiana Eremicheva chose Fundamental and Computational Linguistics as her field of study, she thought it would be about learning languages. Instead, she discovered it was about helping people. In this interview for the HSE Young Scientists project, she discusses science as a way of understanding the world, billiards as a team-building activity, and why learning to read is not always as easy as it seems.
International conflicts, crises and digital overload—the modern world puts our minds to the test every day. Traditional psychology often focuses on the consequences: anxiety, depression, and psychosomatic disorders. But what if we looked at the problem differently—through the lens of the resources that prevent us from breaking down? Psychological immunity is precisely this set of resources. Alena Zolotareva and her group, Psychological Immunity as a Resource for Positive Functioning, are developing an integrative model of this phenomenon, adapting diagnostic tools and preparing for large-scale empirical research. Why do psychologists need to collaborate with medical professionals, and how could their research transform preventive care in clinics and corporations?