We all take speech for granted. We are able to say things to others without thinking about how we do that. We may struggle to know what to say when we are left speechless, but once we gather our thoughts, we can utter them without difficulty. Once you consider speech production more carefully, however, it reveals its full complexity. In […]
When babies explore the world and stumble upon an interesting object, they check it out carefully. Usually by putting the object into their mouth. Adults tend to be more restrained in their oral explorations, but we retain a natural tendency for physical touch: when we become interested in an object we usually pick it up […]
Cultural traditions are common in humans and are thought to be rooted in our evolutionary history; they are deeply ingrained in our society and can, under certain conditions, result in non-adaptive behavior. Given this, might one also expect to observe evidence of cultural traditions in non-human animals? But how do we look for “culture” in animals? […]
According to William Shakespeare, eyes are the windows of the soul. This opinion was shared by Guillaume de Salluste Du Bartas, reflecting early Anglo-French poetic harmonization. By contrast, Neil Shubin in his book Your Inner Fish offered a slightly less ephemeral opinion: “When you look into eyes, forget about romance, creation, and the windows into the soul. With their molecules, genes, […]
What’s the quickest way from the bottom of Bay Street to Eglinton and Yonge? And how about from NYU to Times Square? Or from Checkpoint Charlie to Unter den Linden? If you are familiar with Toronto, New York City, and Berlin, then you can probably answer those questions with relative ease. (Hint: don’t try to […]
It’s close to Christmas. The smell of gingerbread is in the air. The Salvation Army is ringing their bells at every street corner. The sound of “Jingle Bells” is piped onto the sidewalk by your friendly neighborhood department store. “Jingle bells, jingle bells, Jingle all the way. Oh! what fun it is to ride In […]
It’s been a year since we started to roll out the Psychonomics Featured Content section. I published the first post on September 25th, 2014, but there was quite a bit of preparatory work behind the scenes that predates our public appearance, so now is a good time to proclaim “happy anniversary”, or whatever one does after a […]
Video games both challenge and entertain us. We play them for fun, and the more we play the better we get. But might the skills we develop while gaming transfer to other activities? This has been an increasingly hot research question in recent years, with an industry of “brain training” games willing to race ahead of the science, as […]
Quantity (like size) matters when we are making decisions about all aspects of our life. If something costs the same but we have the choice to have more or less of it, have you ever deliberately chosen less? Even when on a diet? There’s a very good reason for this. It is adaptive to go […]
What does Beyoncé have in common with Pamela Anderson, but not with Britney Spears and Angelina Jolie? And what is it that Britney and Angelina have in common? Apparently, Britney and Angelina gave birth to their babies by caesarian section whereas Beyoncé and Pamela gave birth naturally. This is the only thing I know about […]