The “same or different” concept is something we all learned as a child. We were shown two images and asked if they were the same or different. This activity teaches us to compare objects in the world; it introduces critical thinking and has applications in mathematics. The same/different task has also been used in visual […]
Decision Making
My grandmother loved to play the odds, and she shared this love with her grandchildren. Every holiday season, she would distribute a slate of scratchers to her grandkids to try their luck. With a borrowed penny in hand, I’d scratch slowly, letting the suspense build after every revealed shape or letter until the eventual loss. […]
Picture yourself sitting in front of a seemingly endless stack of exams to grade, full of open-ended questions, with responses demonstrating varying levels of understanding. Now imagine your joy when you flip open an exam with a first response that just gets it. An exceptional answer that demonstrates a true mastery of the material. Did […]
Have you ever seen someone who, after being wronged, seems more concerned about a way to get revenge than in stopping to think about what happened and whether revenge is even worth it? Reacting to aggressions without thinking can lead to bad consequences, ranging from relatively mild, such as a heated discussion where impoliteness escalates […]
Are your decisions tied to your gender? Prior research has shown gender differences in financial and career-related decisions, like choosing what to invest in or entrepreneurship. Research has suggested that this may be related to the greater risk sensitivity in women compared to men. But is this true in all situations? “Do men and women […]
Which of these is more common in the English language: A) words that end in “ing” B) words with “n” as the second to last letter? It might be tempting to pick A. There are lots of verbs that come easily to mind that end in “ing” (racing, baking, typing, etc.)—not to mention nouns like […]
November is here. The leaves changed from green into vibrant yellows, oranges, and reds and carpeted the streets. The air chilled, so my winter clothes reappeared, replacing my summer clothes, as I braced myself for the colder months ahead. Root vegetables supplanted fresh salads on my menus. For me, an American in the UK, November […]
Einstein’s theory of special relativity suggests that time passes at a different rate depending on the speed of your movement. Time is relative and depends on one’s movement. However, a certain amount of time can still feel really different to each of us, even when we are not traveling near the speed of light (like […]
The first time I stepped foot into a Whole Foods Market (a fancy, pricey grocery chain), I was amazed by the produce section replete with exotic fruits that I had never seen before: rambutan, cherimoya, horned melon, and most bizarrely, in this Westerner’s humble opinion, Buddha’s hand (see below left). Standing in the aisle, I […]
Doctor’s visit, shot, Band-Aid, and a lollipop. It’s a familiar scene from many a childhood vaccination. But what if inoculations could prevent more than just disease? Stephan Lewandowsky and Mushin Yesilada (pictured below) investigated just that in a recent experiment published in Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications, a Psychonomic Society journal. In a large online […]