There is a lot more to color than most people realize. For example, color has been instrumental in experimental tests of the long-standing controversy about whether one’s language determines one’s mode of thinking. Do we all perceive colors in the same way, regardless of whether we have different words for, say, blue and green or […]
Human beings think. What’s more, we also think about our own thinking—that is, we monitor, recognize, and control our own cognitive processes. This ability is known as metacognition, and it allows us to make judgments of learning or knowing, for example when we ask ourselves questions such as “What do I already know about this topic? […]
The latest impact factors for the Society’s journals have just been released and are shown in the table below: The data suggest that there may be an overall increase in the impact factors of the Society’s portfolio, although the number of years shown (3 years) is too short to permit us to be confident. However, it’s clearly […]
So what’s this שטיק about working memory? Out of 71 posts on this site that we have published since starting out 9 months ago, 7 were about working memory or have at least mentioned it (here, here, here, here, here, and here). This is indicative of the importance of working memory to human cognition—and indeed, we have noted repeatedly that working memory explains roughly half the […]
Why do we sleep? Apparently, this simple question has no simple answer, despite decades of research. According to leading sleep researcher William Dement, “the only reason we need to sleep that is really, really solid is because we get sleepy.” But just because we may not know why we need to sleep doesn’t prevent us from knowing […]
There are some 40,000,000 foreign-born people living in the United States today. Most of those people hail from Asia or Latin America and the Caribbean, and their native language is therefore most likely not English. And indeed, it is not uncommon for people in the U.S.—and also the U.K., Canada, and Australia—to speak English with a […]
There is a party in the hotel room next to you. You are beginning to worry about your 8 am keynote address the next morning, and you’d love to tell those folks to quieten down. But how many of them are there? Just 2 or 3? Or more? What if it’s a whole troupe of […]
I am posting this message on behalf of the Federation of Associations in Behavioral & Brain Sciences: There is a great deal of activity on Capitol Hill right now, and I want to give you an update. In Monday’s newsletter, I wrote articles about two bills affecting NSF funding (see links below). Here’s additional information on […]
When two talking heads are better than two flips of a coin: Social interaction helps team performance Put a few people together on a team and you get teamwork, which Wikipedia lauds as “a means of assuring quality and safety in the delivery of services” in at least some domains. Put a few people together on […]
Stepping right when your next destination is straight ahead: Your ultimate plans guide your navigation now When Christopher Columbus reached the new world, he famously thought he had circumnavigated the globe and landed in India. This may be history’s most famous navigational error but it is far from the only one. Although people are quite good […]