Each year around Thanksgiving I am faced with the same dilemma: nibble on a small amount of snacks as the food is being prepared, or delay gratification for the glorious full plate of edible treasures. Although this may seem trivial, allow me to set the stage: Imagine that it’s the morning of Thanksgiving. Your refrigerator […]
Applied Cognition
Imagine living in a home for decades and then someone, perhaps an armed law enforcement officer, shows up and removes you and your belongings, often facing an uncertain future. Foreclosure of one’s home is right up there among life’s most stressful events. Not surprisingly, foreclosures have been associated with an increased incidence of major depression, […]
Statistical graphs are so ubiquitous and part of our daily work that we may forget how powerful they are. Since their invention by William Playfair a little over 200 years ago, graphs have become indispensable tools not just in science and business, but also in politics. Indeed, one of Playfair’s contributions was to draw attention […]
On 31 August 1997, Diana, Princess of Wales died in a car crash in Paris. The crash was ruled to be the consequence of her driver losing control over the vehicle because he was intoxicated and under the influence of prescription drugs. Her death brought home a message that has been at the center of […]
Are you hungry, yet? How long has it been since you have eaten? Are you cranky and tired? I am as I write this piece. I went on an unexpected food deprivation plan, thanks to a recent trip to Central America. I can’t wait to eat more than toast, applesauce, and bananas again. Food deprivation […]
What percentage of Americans are Muslim? What percentage of Americans are LGBT individuals? What percentage of Americans are Christian? Think about it and take real guesses. If you are like the average person, your guesses were likely overestimates of the real numbers for the smaller percentages (for Muslims; for LGBT), and underestimates for the larger […]
Harvey, Irma, Jose, … and now Maria. Hurricanes have been wreaking havoc in the tropical and subtropical Atlantic for much of the past few months. Their power and consequences fueled by climate change, we can expect more hurricanes that are followed by the retirement of their names: When a named storm was particularly destructive and […]
Are you feeling 🙂 today? Or perhaps 🙁 ? In the modern digital world, we are all conversant with emoticons and emojis. But when you come across the ? emoji, do you know what it means? According to a new article on the Lisbon Emoji and Emoticon Database (LEED), published in the Psychonomic Society’s journal […]
Hamburg, Germany, July 2017. The leaders of the 20 most powerful countries in the world gather at the G20 summit to discuss the issues facing our global society. The meeting was hosted by Angela Merkel, Germany’s chancellor, and among the guests were President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin. The New Statesman reported the excitement […]
Maybe I’m a Luddite, but I was shocked to learn that my car can read me my text messages, switch to a song I want to hear, or navigate to my apartment. This is the natural progression of things—voice-based media systems in modern cars are becoming more and more common, especially in cars purchased by […]