Years ago, I was staying with a few flatmates during an exchange program. Conversations in this type of setting tend to have a good dose of randomness, and here is a funny one that I remembered while writing this post. One day, one of my flatmates asked: “Have you seen a red and purple toothbrush?” […]
Metamemory and Metacognition
In this podcast episode, Anthony Cruz interviews authors about a recent paper published in Memory & Cognition on the confidence of LLMs. Transcripts Kosovicheva: You’re listening to All Things Cognition, a Psychonomic Society podcast. Cruz: Hello, you’re listening to All Things Cognition, a Psychonomic Society podcast. I will be your host today, Anthony Cruz. Confidence […]
In this episode of All Things Cognition, I interviewed Michelle Rivers and Steven Pan (pictured below) about their recent Psychonomic Society journal Memory & Cognition paper called “Metacognitive Awareness of the Pretesting Effect Improves with Self-Regulation Support.” In addition to talking about the benefits of pretesting (or prequestions) on learning, we also talked about other effective […]
Which steak would you prefer: one that is 25% fat, or one that is 75% lean? If you’re like the participants in a classic study by Irwin Levin, you’d pick the latter. This finding represents a framing effect, where equivalent information presented in different ways influences behavior. In this example, the steak labeled with a […]
Here’s a disconcerting thought: what if the baggage screener at the airport – not that many of us are spending much time in airports these days – got paid a bonus for confidently flagging bags for additional inspection? In an ideal world, they would just assess bags based on the perceptual information they have from […]
I met with Annika Boldt and Sam Gilbert (pictured below) to interview them about their paper recently published in the Psychonomic Society journal Cognitive Principles: Research and Implications called “Confidence guides spontaneous cognitive offloading.” When we do something to minimize cognitive demands, we are offloading. This is especially common when we write notes and set alerts, for […]
In the late 1970s, a chimpanzee named Sarah watched a human named Keith struggle to complete simple tasks. When given various solutions, Sarah picked the solutions that would help Keith succeed in his tasks. In one task Keith attempted to grab for an unreachable object (see the left figure below). Sarah chose the option to […]
In some parts of New York state, it recently snowed 18 inches (~45 centimeters) following a major winter storm. With every hour, the snow piled higher and higher – but some of the increments in accumulation, especially toward the beginning, felt bigger, while others took longer to notice. You might even have the feeling that […]
You’ve decided to go to a country you’ve never been to for your next vacation and want to learn some basics of the language to prepare for your trip. You order a book of introductory phrases and grammar basics. When it arrives, you eagerly crack it open, ready to dig in. You start reading the […]
The start of a Formula 1 Grand Prix is always exciting and adrenalin producing, even if you watch it on TV from thousands of miles away and keep the noise level below the pain threshold. (A Formula 1 cockpit is one of the loudest places on Earth.) Have a look at a start of a […]