Does competition boost your memory?

Psychologists have been fascinated with the effects of competition on performance for a long time. Way back in 1898, Triplett found that bike racers were faster when racing against each other versus against the clock and similar research continues to this day. A recent summary suggests that competition can be both beneficial and harmful, depending […]

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Personal pronouns (like she, he, and they) provide insight into language

People signal their gender identity by using gendered and gender-neutral pronouns pronouns. It’s increasingly popular to include one’s preferred pronouns in email signatures, Twitter bios, etc. This usage provides an opportunity to research how people understand language. In this interview, I speak with Jennifer Arnold (pictured below) about her paper on the topic recently published in Psychonomic […]

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Mask wearing can alter fundamental cognitive networks for the McGurk effect

As a cognitive psychology professor, I have always loved showing students the never-failing McGurk effect in perception class. After all, who isn’t intrigued by how reliable this effect is? No matter how much you know about it and how many times you have seen or heard the stimuli before, it works. The McGurk effect is the experience […]

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Let’s get physical … but don’t lose control

Olivia Newton’s Physical is a great song (so is the video!). This 1980’s classic candidly describes the experience of sexual desire without leaving out the feelings of reduced self-control that sometimes come with it (“It’s gettin’ hard this holdin’ back / If you know what I mean” [music intensifies]). Sexual arousal has been associated with positive emotions and can […]

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What’s hiding in your reaction time data? New features of visual search behavior from hazard analysis

Sometimes, it seems like the most simple tasks are also the most frustrating. Take the junk drawer in your kitchen, for example. They’re in every home, we’re not proud of them, and whenever we spend several minutes looking for the vegetable peeler when cooking dinner, we promise ourselves that one day, we will get this […]

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The magic trick of emotions: Using magic tricks to assess epistemic emotions

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 […]

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Do bounties make you more confident about how you perceive the world?

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 […]

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