Open but not rugged: The awe-inspiring vastness of the Nullarbor

Have you ever experienced “vastness”? Have you driven across a vast expanse of space that stretches from horizon to horizon seemingly without limit? If not, then I can recommend the Australian Nullarbor (pronounced “null-ah-bore”), the treeless arid expanse of red soil and scrubs in between Eucla in Western Australia and Ceduna in South Australia. It […]

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Porcine aviators’ attire: The indestructible causal rationality of magical worlds

Suppose your task is to design a stylish aviator outfit for pigs. How would you go about doing that? You might find it helpful to know that the 1616 edition of John Withals’s English-Latin dictionary, A Shorte Dictionarie for Yonge Begynners, notes that “Pigs fly in the ayre with their tayles forward.” So you might […]

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In or Out? – The power of stigmatization on the body’s fundamental processes

Hidden Figures, a 2016 movie about the “computers” behind the calculations that put rockets and humans into space followed by a man on the moon (Project Mercury and the Apollo Missions) is a tale of racism, sexism, and discrimination. This movie highlights the lives of three African-American women and the struggles they faced in a […]

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Eating dinner or grandma? Patterns of intonation are crucial to comprehension

Your tone of voice can tell others a lot about what you mean. Which intonation you use in a sentence matters and your intonation can help listeners figure out the critical difference between “Let’s eat, Grandma!” and “Let’s eat Grandma!” This is only one of a number of examples showing just how the same words […]

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Diversity in the Psychonomic Society: Now More than Ever

This post is a message from Duane Watson with the Psychonomic Society’s Diversity and Inclusion Committee: Valerie Reyna (Chair), Laura Carlson, Ivy Defoe, Jean Fox Tree, Alejandro Lleras, Janet Metcalfe, and Travis Seymour. The Psychonomic Society is committed to diversity in all of its forms.  In this post, we focus on one of the diversity challenges that our […]

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Can you dig-it? Brain activity during one- and two-digit multiplication

Learning basic arithmetic is a foundation of early math education. Algebra, trigonometry, and calculus are built on, among other things, the ability to quickly and easily solve math equations. Being able to solve math problems is also important for more general life purposes, like tipping, or paying taxes. For that reason, students should be able […]

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Bob better had a round face and Kirk a square jaw: People are liked better if their names go with their faces

What does Bob look like? … Bob who? … No, just Bob, any Bob. And while you are at it, what does Kirk look like? At first glance those questions appear absurd. How could anyone infer an unknown person’s looks from their name? Why would the average Bob look any different from the average Kirk? […]

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