What do we know about the structures of our knowledge and its connectivity? Do they differ between novices and experts, especially on the topics of experts? Imagine if I asked you to come up with as many words as possible related to quantum mechanics. How many words would you generate? How about if you had […]
There are many lessons in life that we have all had to learn the hard way: don’t cram the dishwasher full of plates, arrive at the airport well before your flight time, and maybe take two trips instead of carrying a huge armload of laundry up the stairs in one go. When we make mistakes […]
Does Stanley Hudson, from The Office (US), sport a moustache? In an opener from the now-classic NBC sitcom, The Office (US), Dunder Mifflin staff members debate over whether their colleague has a moustache. The episode starts with the announcement that Stanley Hudson, a Black employee, is returning from his recent tonsillectomy, and his colleagues get […]
When was the last time you looked for a T among Ls? Unless you spend a lot of time in the lab, running in visual search experiments, your experience of visual search probably isn’t looking for Ts amongst Ls. Your experience of visual search in day to day life is probably more like “where’s my […]
Researchers have argued for centuries over two leading statistical approaches: Bayesian analysis and the Frequentist approach. Both holding their own complex (and convincing) reasoning, well-meaning researchers can all agree on the goal of their analyses: reaching conclusions with the least amount of bias and error. The war between Bayesians and Frequentists is likely far from […]
Let’s set the stage with a series of images. Each of these pictorial examples represents a different aspect of decision-making, which requires the ability to compare incoming stimuli quickly to behave appropriately. In the case of the flying stimuli in the first set of images, a human might be asked to categorize […]
Let’s get this post started with a cognitive science themed trivia question. What’s the name of the intelligence component comprising declarative and procedural knowledge learnt by an individual throughout their life span? The answer is: crystallized intelligence. Information such as the number of different words a person knows (vocabulary size) and the ability to retrieve […]
I’m pleased to introduce you to our new Digital Associate Editor (DAE), Melinh Lai (pictured below). If you read her post authored in a guest capacity, you are already familiar with her. In the interview with Melinh, I asked my now-standard DAE questions and was entertained by her thoughtful, clever, humorous responses and I suspect […]
What does being in nature actually do for us? In the last couple of years, when we’ve all been in lockdown and had to work from home for prolonged periods, we’ve each probably thought “I should get out of the house and get some fresh air” – but does that help in more than the […]
If you watched the Academy Award winning film, CODA (trailer below), you’ll appreciate that the character who played the son is a native signer. That is, he learned sign language from his parents from the start. How do we learn spatial relations? It’s a fundamental ability we pick up early. Much of what we know […]