Habits can be great for you, such as flossing consistently to preserve oral health, or they can rather be a problem, such as smoking, or something I struggle with from time to time: doomscrolling. I think part of the reason I sometimes get caught in the loop of scrolling endlessly is that I actually get […]
My grandmother loved to play the odds, and she shared this love with her grandchildren. Every holiday season, she would distribute a slate of scratchers to her grandkids to try their luck. With a borrowed penny in hand, I’d scratch slowly, letting the suspense build after every revealed shape or letter until the eventual loss. […]
Now you don’t see me, and now you still don’t see me: Detecting movie skips using a flicker paradigm
In the past I’ve been accused of various forms of laziness—not taking advantage of a beautiful day, whiling away my childhood, not studying for my next test, whiling away my adolescence, not writing my dissertation, whiling away my 20s, 30s, etc.—when really I’ve been hard at work watching TV and movies. That the optimal method […]
When I first dove into research at my current laboratory, I inherited a grab bag of R code snippets, shell scripts, tasks, paradigms, and measures. I’m sure I am not alone in this experience. Using existing tools and frameworks in research is common practice—it’s often more efficient and can yield better outcomes than building everything […]
I had the pleasure of attending the annual meeting for the Psychonomic Society this year in the beautiful city of San Francisco where the early days of gay rights played out due to the actions and commitment of the courageous Harvey Milk, activist and politician for gay rights. With this context in mind, I experienced […]
I have played sports my whole life—swimming, tennis, basketball, track, cycling, fencing, soccer—you name it, I have probably tried it. Even though I loved working hard and competing, I still remember boys snidely remarking, “Girls can’t play sports” or “You run like such a girl!” I tried not to listen, but I would be lying if […]
Have you ever found yourself struggling to remember your babysitter’s name from childhood? Or what about remembering if you ate a full meal before 8 PM? If you’re anything like me, some details are often discarded immediately from memory, but others are sometimes weirdly retained for years. Some days, I can remember the cool jacket […]
Do you remember your prom? Do you remember your 16th birthday? Do you remember your first day of school? People usually have detailed memories of important autobiographical events. These events are usually represented in memory as being tied to a specific context and a specific moment in time. But, this specificity in recall is not […]
I have a fairly straightforward relationship with dairy: I partake in its delicious fruits semi-regularly and it, in turn, completely devastates my guts. Yet despite this connection between lactose consumption and gastrointestinal distress—a correlation that I can only describe as very strong—it somehow took me several years to fully realize that, yes, I’m lactose intolerant. […]
I’m pleased to introduce you to the Psychonomic Society’s newest Science Communication intern, Daniel Pfaff (pictured below). He’ll be joining Hannah Mechtenberg for the next six months, working with our Digital Content team and writing posts on research conducted by our members and published in the Society’s journals. We are delighted they will be part […]