I think I am not alone when I say I love a good magic trick! Whether fascinatingly complicated or wonderfully simple, magic tricks can garner the interest of even the greatest skeptic. Famous magicians throughout time include, Harry Houdini (the master of Escapology), David Copperfield (the Great Storyteller and Illusionist), and David Blaine (the Endurance […]
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 […]
Once upon a time, Kepler and Descartes proposed that vergence is the critical absolute distance cue. And that theory lived happily ever after. Until Paul Linton‘s paper. In this podcast, I interview Paul (pictured below) about his work published in the Psychonomic Society journal Attention, Perception & Psychophysics. Learn about longstanding theories and Linton’s research […]
Imagine for a moment, the wind blowing through your hair, your skin glistening with the slightest sheen of moisture, a steady breath in and out, and your feet softly caressing the pavement as you place one foot in front of the other with the grace of a cheetah while the moon shines down. Unfortunately, my […]
What’s scarier? Big bad wolf or bad big wolf? The three little pigs and little red riding hood and her grandma probably wouldn’t be bothered with the distinction. But there’s a natural order to language in which “bad big wolf” doesn’t sound quite right. The English language has various grammatical rules that speakers follow to […]
Imagine how you might measure someone’s spatial thinking skills – their ability to understand, manipulate, and reason about how objects interact in physical spaces. If you’re a psychologist, you probably immediately thought of Shepard and Metzler’s mental rotation task. In this task, participants are shown two illustrations and asked if the pictured objects are identical or […]
Professor Irene Pepperberg (pictured below) is the awardee of the Comparative Cognition Society‘s Annual Research Award for 2020 for her body of work. With that, it is a Special Issue in Learning & Behavior in honor of her research contributions. In the interview, she reflects on her career, gives her 20-year self some advice, talks about research with African Grey […]
The title of this post is “How are aware remote operators of autonomous vehicles?” According to a new paper by Mutzenich, Durant, Helman, and Dalton (pictured below) published in the Psychonomic Society journal Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications, the answer is: we don’t know. One of the points of the paper is to urge researchers to […]
As many office workers transitioned to working from home last year, there has been an unprecedented rise in the number of pet adoptions. And as any dog or cat owner will attest, caring for a pet comes with many challenges. Your cat might block your view of your computer screen all day, but when it’s […]
What?! Two new Digital Associate Editors in one week?! That’s right. I’m pleased to introduce you to our newest member of the Psychonomic Society’s Digital Content Team, Benjamin Wolfe (pictured below). To do so, I’ll start with a test question. Ben Wolfe ___________________________. a. is married to Anna Kosovicheva b. is the son of Jeremy Wolfe, […]