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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
When the Egyptian King Intef died some 4,000 years ago, his tomb was inscribed with a song that encourages its audience to live a life of what came to be called hedonism: “Revel in pleasure while your life endures… never weary grow/In eager quest of what your heart desires.” Some 3,800 years later, the pursuit of happiness was […]
Randomness and human cognition generally do not mesh well. We know that all of us, including James Bond, tend to misperceive randomness in various ways. For example, anyone who has seen a basketball player make three shots in a row is likely to rate the chances of another success to be higher than if the player […]
Millions of pilgrims descend upon Mecca every year during the Hajj, one of Islam’s five pillars. The faithful gather to perform several rituals. For example, each person walks counter-clockwise seven times around the Ka’aba, a large black cube that determines the direction of prayer for Muslims around the world. Unfortunately, this event is not without its own list of […]
When the cat barks and the guitar has a bow: Neurocognitive signatures of processing perplexing text “A mouse was looking for something to eat while a bigger animal was waiting to hunt it.” What’s your best guess about which animal was lurking over the unfortunate mouse’s shoulder? I suspect you would be surprised if the […]