#goCRPI: The perceptual expertise of soccer referees

26th of June 2006. Soccer World Cup. Italy-v-Australia is tied at 0-0 in the 95th minute. Fabio Grosso, Italy’s hero who ultimately secured the World Cup against France during a penalty shoot-out, dribbles his way into the penalty area and falls over an Australia defender. The referee awards a penalty to Italy, and the rest […]

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Happy Birthday AP&P!

One of the Psychonomic Society’s journals turned 50 this year: Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, more often affectionately known as AP&P, has been contributing to the scientific literature for half a century. The publisher of the journal, Springer, produced a little “happy-birthday” video: [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGIyPXi40uM]   The Editor’s birthday perspective To further explore this milestone, I […]

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Don’t think about the pink elephant you are reaching for: automaticity of reading and arm movements

Imagine your daily commute. Think about 2+2. Don’t picture pink elephants. These examples illustrate the automaticity of cognition. On highly familiar routes, people habitually and automatically navigate, sometimes taking a familiar route absent-mindedly even when they needed to run an errand some place else. I’d be willing to bet that most people reading this couldn’t […]

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The theologian and the black cat in a dark room: ‘unconscious’ perception as a statistical artifact

A philosopher and a theologian are discussing their respective fields over coffee. The theologian dismisses philosophy: “You know what a philosopher is like?” he demands. “A philosopher is a man searching in a dark room for a black cat that isn’t there.” The philosopher nods. “Maybe so,” he concedes, “but it takes a theologian to […]

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Opening the door to distraction: The open office effect

Better get those headphones: We can’t really ignore task-related noise Like many people, I work in an open office. Workers increasingly find themselves in open offices as companies (and universities) switch to these layouts in a bid to maximize space and reduce building costs. In my case, I work remotely but share a local co-working […]

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#goCRPI: Bayes battling baserate neglect in medical diagnosis

You are an intern in the premier hospital in Tierra del Fuego and you are seeing about 240 patients daily, who always suffer from one of two possible diseases (things are a little different in Tierra del Fuego), namely meowism or barkosis. The tricky thing is that the same symptoms are associated with both diseases, […]

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