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 […]
A few paces into a walk one day, my friend’s dog found, nestled under a pile of autumn leaves, the most wonderful treasure the world could offer: a discarded box of half-eaten chicken wings. Before my friend could pull her dog away, the wings were gone—inhaled with the speed of an opportunist who knows better […]
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 […]
Sports have been part of my life since I was a kid, with team sports like basketball, volleyball, and softball being some of my favorites. When I no longer played competitively, I stayed with my favorite sports by refereeing – youth, high school, collegiate, and even a brief foray into professional leagues. And when my […]
Do you ever have trouble recognizing a familiar face? I do from time to time. But frankly, I was surprised to know that there are individuals for whom this is beyond an occasional nuisance, and it profoundly affects their social and emotional lives because of a neurological condition called prosopagnosia. I first heard of prosopagnosia […]
Here’s a challenge. While you read this post, I want you to stay completely focused. Don’t let your attention drift – no checking emails, thinking about your lunch plans, or petting your dog. Sounds easy enough, right? Sometimes, it’s hard to pay attention. Sometimes the task is too difficult, sometimes other things distract you, or […]
There are some memories you wish you could forget. I wish I could forget the time in high school when, during the finals of a debate tournament, I accidentally spent an entire speech in front of an auditorium packed with people making arguments in favor of the opposing team’s side. While the loss of this […]
As mentioned in the last post, the Psychonomic Society launched a new program, a Science Communication internship for graduate students to gain experience writing about scientific findings for the general public. Two interns, Kelly Cotton and Raunak Pillai (Raunak’s interview is here), were selected for the first term that will last over the next six months. During this time, […]
The Psychonomic Society launched a new program, a Science Communication internship. Not all graduate students wish to continue in academia, so this program offers experience writing about science for the general public. Even for those students who do wish to go down the academic path, communicating our research to other people than other scientists is […]
As you try to make sense of this sentence, do you find yourself looking at individual letters, or processing each word automatically? If you are an expert English reader, you probably said the latter. Evidence suggests that at least some word recognition occurs due to holistic processing, or perceptually integrating letters into a unitary whole. […]