On the record

"If you say, 'I'm losing it, this must be Alzheimer's, I'm getting old,' that's going to affect your memory performance the next time around. But if you say, 'I wasn't really trying, I'm going to try harder next time,' it offers a ray of hope....When a person can't remember right, they get anxious, and anxiety works against fluid cognitive performance. When you let it go, it comes back in five or 10 minutes. The goal is to keep people motivated so they understand that memory is a skill and if you do a little work, you can get better."

--Skip Rizzo, PhD, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, March 4.

"There has been a lot of change in the toy industry. We recognize that more and more children are going into day-care centers and are exposed to different types of toys at earlier ages. We also know there's the whole issue of computer games and electronic toys that the current guidelines don't even address. Now, because of technology, we're able to put a small computer chip into any small toy, and that has really changed how children play....Kids really are growing up faster because technology is letting them."

--Celestine Kiss, an engineering psychologist at the Consumer Product Safety Commission on the organization's decision to revamp its toy guidelines. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Feb. 27.

"The trauma is deep inside us. It does not simply vanish--even in 10 years...Some of us deny the trauma. Some of us say it is history. We want to forget it. We hide behind our wealth, our new expressways, malls and clothes, behind the new greenery and the buildings."

--Jasem M. Hajia, a Kuwaiti psychologist, on Kuwait 10 years after its liberation from Iraqi occupation. St. Louis Post-Dispatch Web site, March 4.

"What we are saying to kids is that you, with all the great powers of cognition of a 14- or 15-year-old, are supposed to figure out when you hear a serious threat, assess the implications and make some decision as to whether to report it....But what we have to do is convince kids that it is in their own best interest to take all of these threats seriously....Most [school shooters] have talked about what they planned to do before they did it."

--Charles Patrick Ewing, PhD, after two students were killed and 12 people wounded during a school shooting in Santee, Calif. Washington Post, March 7.

"In designing work spaces, companies need to think carefully about the different tasks and demands that will be carried out there. An environment built for people who work in teams won't necessarily work for people who need to concentrate."

--Gary Evans, PhD, on why office planners should take into account the kind of work that employees will do when creating workspaces. Washington Post, March 6.