“Second star to the right and straight on ’til morning.” ― J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan Like Peter Pan, I’m a landmark kind-of-navigator and my navigation is spot on once I have a good idea of the space. As a 5-yr-old, I took my 3-yr-old brother on an adventure through the streets of our neighborhood from our […]
If you have ever been in a stressful situation (such as living through a pandemic), you might have been told by others to try meditation through yoga or other similar practices. In fact, if you were to browse YouTube, search the internet, or visit a bookstore for tips on stress relief, you will surely land […]
George Bernard Shaw is credited for saying, “England and America are two countries divided by a common language.” It is not clear whether or not he actually said that, but the sentiment is clear that people have a tendency to place judgement or discrimination on the basis of accent or dialect. Accent is the way […]
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 […]
A few months ago, the department head sent me a short email asking whether I had a few minutes to spare. A bit odd – I thought – but I replied. The response email was utterly suspicious. It read, “Can you buy X amount of gift cards and send me the codes? We need them […]
How might a road tell you what to expect, and would this keep everyone who uses it safer? Since it’s probably a bad idea to have the road start to talk to drivers, cyclists and pedestrians, how should we design it so that everyone who uses it can do so safely? This question has interested […]
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 […]
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 […]
Imagine your morning routine: First, you’re about to take a shower. You turn on the water and wait for it to heat up while you undress. Although you’ve never kept track, you know exactly when to step into the shower to avoid a shock from the cold water. Now imagine you’re making some coffee. You […]
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 […]