“But when does lack of ‘simplicity’ in the protective belt of theoretical adjustments reach the point at which the theory must be abandoned?” – Lakatos, 1976 What does it take to falsify a psychological theory? This question sounds straightforward: if you find data that are inconsistent with the theory, you reject the theory. But in […]
Working Memory
Everyone struggles to remember things. Whether it’s a home address, someone’s phone number, or even a new acquaintance’s name—it’s challenging to recall information when we need to. We have lost count of the number of times we’ve been introduced to someone only to immediately forget their name. However, some things might be easier to remember […]
Music and language share many cognitive features. Not surprisingly, it has been argued that they may have shared evolutionary origins and are present in every culture. I have a soft spot for cognitive studies in these two areas. When reading my earlier posts, you may notice that I covered topics such as bilingualism, the acoustics of emotions in the voice, […]
Everyone wants to be better at focusing, remembering, and problem-solving, right? The self-help market recognizes and exploits this and is teeming with brain games that promise a sharper mind. Many of these games are based on tasks that cognitive psychologists use to study working memory, the system involved in short-term processing and storage of information. Whether or […]
Have you ever been hit on the head? How long it’s been since you did? Blows to the head are not uncommon, they can happen in sports, accidental falls, fights, and in plenty of other ways. Heck, they can happen sometimes just because you crouch down looking for something and then miscalculate your distance when […]
We rarely listen to just one stream of information at a time. Whether we are at a dinner party, on a crowded bus, or talking on the phone while walking down a busy street, more often than not there are multiple voices that compete for our attention. People are generally very good at focusing on […]
Visual working memory (VWM) refers to our ability to hold in memory, for relatively brief amounts of time, an array of arbitrary shapes or colors that are not easily verbalized. For example, consider the stimulus below: When this is shown for 1/10th of a second, and is then replaced by a blank screen or some […]
Have you ever had a conversation with someone who constantly averted their gaze? Why do you think that is? If you are like most people, you might suspect a myriad of reasons, with most being categorically not good. You might suspect that your conversational partner is socially uncomfortable, disinterested in the conversation, hiding something, or […]
Language and music unfold in time in similar ways. Just like we do not produce an arbitrary sequence of words, music follows a set of principles, and notes that fail to follow them can sound “ungrammatical.” Both language and music also often show hierarchical structure, with the pace of speech and music often having what […]
If you have ever asked a stranger for directions, especially in a place where people speak in a wonderful Scottish accent, you may relate to the experience of the driver in this video: It may not be such a challenge to remember directions if your memory span—that is, the number of items you can recall […]