Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a major public-health problem around the world. In the United States, around 1 in a 1,000 people suffer TBI—around 1.7 million people every year—although the number can be much higher in other countries, as shown in the figure below. The impact of TBI on survivors and loved ones can be devastating. One […]
Attention guides human perception, memory, and action in intriguing ways. Some time ago on this blog we learned that visual search can be directed by conceptual information: Saying or reading a word such as “tomato” makes it easier to find red things. We also learned on this blog that looking at a tomato can help you touch […]
Humans, to judge from the amount we laugh, are apparently the most comical species. We use laughter as the best medicine, we laugh all the way to the bank, and we laugh so hard we forget to cry. From “hahahas” and LOLs, to guffaws, chuckles, giggles, cackles, and snorts, humans do appear to be the […]
Have you stood in line at the Louvre in Paris to catch a glimpse of famous Mona Lisa’s smile? People say that besides her ambiguous smile, her gaze tends to follow you, which might add to the mysterious aura that has been created around her for centuries. There is a considerable body of evidence that […]
Old Faithful but not El Capitan: multiple-choice pretesting helps learning about cronartium ribicola
Old Faithful…. Hayden Valley…. Mammoth Hot springs. Clearly I am talking about the natural wonders of Yellowstone National Park. Now try and answer the following question: What state does the majority of the park reside in? The choices are: (a) Idaho; (b)South Dakota; (c) Wyoming; (d) Montana. If you correctly picked Wyoming, you clearly know too […]
For many people, a trip to the beach is the highlight of the summer. The salty air, lounging on the sand, the sound of waves, swimming, drying off in the sun, the smell of sunscreen, a stack of beach reads. But first, it’s time to pack those suitcases… Where are the swimming suits again? How […]
It gives me great pleasure to introduce our new Digital Associate Editor, Dr. Anja Jamrozik, who joined our team a few weeks ago. Welcome, Anja, great to have you on the team. For future reference, Anja’s Psychonomics bio page is here, and she will be publishing her first post as Digital Associate Editor tomorrow. It’s actually her […]
Generating the angular velocities of planetary and annular gears: When self-generating explanations helps learning Tell me, how does a differential work? Can you explain it to me? All of us who drive or ride in cars rely on a differential to get us around corners under power, and yet not all of us know that […]