What are good topics for literature review prizes?

Hm. We are principally interested here, practicality-wise, in akrasia and productivity. I don't know of any particular area of the akrasia literature that hasn't been discussed thoroughly here. Productivity-wise, software tools outside psychological training like dual n-back and spaced repetition tools like Mnemosyne/Anki already have their coverage. Nootropics are a common interest, but the major ones seem covered either by Wikipedia or my own stuff.

Maybe there's an area of psychology missing? For example, I've wondered how well-researched the Big Five personality factors are, and in particular, what the research on Conscientiousness says. I've collected a number of citations on it, but this has always been half-hearted. Which is too bad, because Conscientiousness seems like a major factor that LWers lack, and is pretty closely related to akrasia. Lukeprog claimed there was research into how to improve it in one of the reviews he cited, but I couldn't refind it.

Maybe about "how to format knowledge for easy learning" There is an optimal strategy to turning information into something that is easy to learn, but we seem to be limited to a couple of sites discussing it.

The recent Direct Instruction thread suggests there is more to it.

Two that come immediately to mind:

1) Cognitive enhancement, covering both the various nootropics and more "traditional" methods like exercise and getting enough sleep.

2) The paleo diet

(If these are too large, covering one particular facet would still be valuable. Ex: one particular class of nootropics, or the lectin-allergy hypothesis)

Sleep is a huge issue. Much work has been done on both cognitive and health effects, but I'd like to see a cost/benefit analysis - not like sleep is free. I feel there is a lot of room for 'winning' over default behavior in this area.

There have been a fair few articles on LessWrong about utilitarian giving, with existential risk reduction and foreign aid being the most commonly recommended. Given that for many LessWrongers maximizing utilions is a major T. In my own investigations, I've found terribly few well-researched critiques on aid. Most of the criticism that does exist focuses on aid given directly to governments. Whilst this does make up a large portion of overall aid given, this is mostly irrelevant for e.g. deciding whether to give to any GiveWell recommended charities.

The major problem with writing such an article would be the lack of high-quality, academic research in this area. Having said that, there has been [i]some[/i] good research, and doing some original research is not out of the question.

Full disclosure: If you did choose this as a topic for a future prize, it is very likely that I would submit an entry for it.

I would like to link to this comment on Eliezer's post "the cluster structure of thingspace".