“This chair is too big!” she exclaimed. So she sat in the second chair. “This chair is too big, too!” she whined. So she tried the last and smallest chair. “Ahhh, this chair is just right,” she sighed. But just as she settled down into the chair to rest, it broke into pieces! – Southey […]
“The impious warbler delved into the paltry aperitif and anointed the pumice with ineffable rigmarole.” That’s a sentence with a lot of big words (and I hope it’s never been uttered before), but if you understood that I was referring to a nasty little bird that wiped some booze on a rock, then you may […]
With the return of the sunny days of summer (save for our friends in the southern hemisphere), you might find yourself in a situation where, having invited your best friends for a barbecue, you forget the sausages on the grill and serve them, er, completely charred. Seeing the blackened meat, one of them snickers: “You’re […]
In this podcast episode, I interview Sezin Öner about her paper published in Memory & Cognition. The paper reports research conducted collaboratively with 30 researchers from 15 countries around the world. Participants in those countries reported unusual national and global events during the first signs of the pandemic and what may occur in the future. The authors considered […]
We all know that multitasking while driving can have deadly consequences. In the U.S. alone, 3142 deaths and over 400,000 injuries were caused by distracted driving in 2020. In fact, texting while driving doubles your chances of being the cause of an accident. But is all driving-related multitasking this dangerous? A recent report by Mallory […]
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 […]
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 […]
“We all sometimes feel that we make different decisions when we’re hungry. We can now be more specific about this, by distinguishing planned vs. habitual actions.” – Sanjay Manohar Hunger is a beast. It can make us act unlike ourselves at times. As every Snickers ad reminds us: you’re not you when you’re hungry. We […]
If you are a cognitive psychologist, you have probably used the Deese-Roediger-McDermott paradigm in your lectures as a false memory demonstration. If not, try the demo now by reading the following list. Try to remember the words for a memory test (don’t take notes!): soda heart tooth tart taste sour bitter good sugar candy nice […]