Close your eyes for a moment and think about the past year. Now imagine mapping out your plans for the upcoming year. If you had to point to a location that corresponds to “tomorrow” or “next month,” where would it be? What about “yesterday”? Chances are, next month is somewhere to the right of tomorrow. […]
Many of us have things that we look forward to when the weather gets cooler – the usual apple picking, pumpkin carving, admiring the fall leaves, and (how could I forget) the Psychonomic Society Annual Meeting. One thing that I don’t particularly look forward to is the dense fog that happens around this time of […]
When was the last time you learned something without even trying? If your answer was “never”, you might be surprised to find out that much of what we learn in our day-to-day lives comes to us fairly effortlessly. This is because we’re remarkably good at picking up on patterns in our environment. From a young […]
For those of us who enjoy science fiction (and even of those of us who don’t), the word ‘robot’ conjures up images of humanlike machines, perhaps C-3PO, WALL-E, Baymax, or one of the Transformers. Of course, outside of science fiction, when we consider the definition of a robot – a machine that completes complex tasks […]
If you’re like me, you’ve been busy trying out new hobbies in the last couple of years. Maybe you’ve taken up gardening, sculpting, hiking, or knitting. Or perhaps you’ve taken up a more unusual one: competitive duck herding, extreme ironing, ostrich racing, or worm charming. (Yes, these are all real activities!). But before you run […]
There are many lessons in life that we have all had to learn the hard way: don’t cram the dishwasher full of plates, arrive at the airport well before your flight time, and maybe take two trips instead of carrying a huge armload of laundry up the stairs in one go. When we make mistakes […]
One of life’s most difficult challenges is keeping information a secret, even when well-intentioned. Imagine you need to plan a surprise party for your dad. You send out the invitations, order a cake, and buy the decorations. When you’re talking over these details with your brother, he suddenly looks toward the door. Naturally, you look […]
We’ll start this one off with a trivia question (and perhaps a bad joke). What do astronomers and researchers who study eye movements have in common? For one, they both have a keen interest in orbits! The other thing they have in common? When describing eye movements, vision researchers use a term that’s actually borrowed […]
Sometimes, it seems like the most simple tasks are also the most frustrating. Take the junk drawer in your kitchen, for example. They’re in every home, we’re not proud of them, and whenever we spend several minutes looking for the vegetable peeler when cooking dinner, we promise ourselves that one day, we will get this […]
As many office workers transitioned to working from home last year, there has been an unprecedented rise in the number of pet adoptions. And as any dog or cat owner will attest, caring for a pet comes with many challenges. Your cat might block your view of your computer screen all day, but when it’s […]