The bad big wolf or the big bad wolf? Why we order adjectives the way do

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 […]

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Measuring spatial thinking with real-world tasks

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 […]

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L&B Special Issue: Interview with Irene Pepperberg

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 […]

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How aware are remote operators of autonomous vehicles?

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 […]

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Interview with new Digital Associate Editor Benjamin Wolfe

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, […]

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Interview with new Digital Associate Editor Anna Kosovicheva

Please allow me to introduce you to our newest Digital Associate Editor, Anna Kosovicheva (pictured below). Anna joined the Psychonomic Society’s Digital Content Team just this year. In this capacity, she will play a role in many of our activities, including covering some of the latest research that fills the pages of the Society’s journals. […]

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Blue or Blew? Homophones can tell us about working memory strategies

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 […]

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Interview with new Digital Associate Editor Michelle Rivers

Michelle Rivers, former Twitternome, is now on the Psychonomic Society’s Digital Content Team as one of the Digital Associate Editors! In a series of interviews leading up to the 2020 Virtual Annual Meeting, Kimele Persaud and I interviewed our 2020 Twitternomes. Including Michelle (pictured below; check out that interview). That makes Michelle our most interviewed […]

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The untold benefits of life-long exposure to different cultures and languages

Experiencing different cultures and languages is one of the most exciting elements of living in a globally connected world. If you enjoy cross-cultural adventures or have lived in multiple cities or countries, you are probably familiar with processing English spoken in a variety of accents. In fact, next time you watch a movie, pay careful […]

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