New research findings in Psychology

The 55^th annual convention of Taiwan Psychological Association and International Conference took place at National Cheng Kung University, Tainan on October 15^th and 16^th. Important, current issues and topics were addressed in keynote speeches. Many independent studies were quite inspiring as well. Among them, one study from the lab of Prof. Su-Ling Yeh, National Taiwan University, is particularly interesting. Ti-Fan Hung and Prof. Yeh investigate the effect of blue light on individuals’ attention network. They found that blue light did influence our attention network. It caused reduced net effect of executive control, but not on aspects such as alertness or orienting. Nevertheless, if without compromising accuracy, compared to that of red light treatment, reaction time of blue light group is actually shorter. This is interesting since we have been warned how blue light can inhibit our melatonin, affect circadian, but this study demonstrates that it is not all that bad. Just refrain ourselves from using smartphones before resting hours and we shall be fine.