Mavis has aged gracefully. With the beneficent smile of the ailurophile she exits the attorney’s office of Smith & Jones after signing her will, which bequeaths her estate to the local cat sanctuary. Mavis leaves behind a crisp $100 bill to pay for Mr. Smith’s services. A short while later, Mr. Smith discovers that the $100 bill […]
Government should be transparent. Science should be open. Government information belongs into the public domain, and scientific data should be publicly available to permit replication and scrutiny. Few would disagree with those calls for openness, and indeed there has been a flurry of activity within the sciences to upgrade research practices to achieve greater openness […]
Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications Join us in Pasteur’s Quadrant The Psychonomic Society has launched a new journal,Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications (CRPI…. pronounced “creepy” …but in a nice way). I am delighted to be the founding editor. Let me tell you what you need to know about this venture: Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications will publish […]
Did you ever wonder why Winnie-the-Pooh tends to close his eyes when he tries to come up with yet another genius idea (like turning himself into a little black rain cloud to trick some bees)? Is he just trying to think really hard despite all the fluff in his head or turning away from the […]
In case you’ve missed it , talking on your cell phone while driving is pretty dangerous. Although distracted driving may be more dangerous than drunk driving, the campaign to raise awareness and create a stigma around cell-phone use during driving chafes against introspection. Despite a large and growing body of work suggesting that distraction from cell phone use impairs reflexes, […]
It gives me great pleasure to introduce our new Digital Associate Editor, Dr. Steven Weisberg, who joined our team a few weeks ago. Steven is replacing Dr. Jason Finley, who had to leave our team for workload-related reasons. So, welcome Steven, great to have you on the team. I aim to gradually replace all Digital Associate […]
President’s Executive Order Outlines Crucial Role for Psychology and Allied Sciences in Serving Society: Get Involved Today! Amidst all the glum news about government support for behavioral science research, a hopeful note was sounded in an historic executive order issued by the U. S. President on September 15, 2015. For the first time, a President has […]
Most beings are social, and thus sensitive to the presence of others around them. Even cockroaches perform differently when they are being observed by other members of Blatta orientalis. In this respect, people are no different: we tend to perform simple tasks better when in the presence of other people. There is now a large body of evidence concerning […]
Chemists have test tubes and Bunsen burners. Astronomers have telescopes, computer scientists have computers, and psychologists and cognitive scientists have ANOVAs. If there is one tool that is being used across virtually all domains of psychology, cognitive science, and neuroscience, it is the Analysis of Variance or ANOVA. Somewhat ironically, ANOVA does not actually test […]
This post was co-authored by Manish Singh of Rutgers University and Chetan Prakash of California State University, San Bernardino. A new theory in science, like the new offspring of an altricial species, needs an initial phase of development under the care of its progenitors. With the wane of this phase, its fitness must be tested in the rough and […]