When the cat barks and the guitar has a bow: Neurocognitive signatures of processing perplexing text “A mouse was looking for something to eat while a bigger animal was waiting to hunt it.” What’s your best guess about which animal was lurking over the unfortunate mouse’s shoulder? I suspect you would be surprised if the […]
Here is a neat finding, originally reported by Gillian Cohen in 1990. It is easier to remember that someone is a baker than that someone’s name is Baker. Although both memories seem to require making a connection between the person’s appearance and the very same word “baker,” the profession baker is meaningful, evoking rich imagery and other associations. The name […]
In order to read this text you are focusing your attention on this single task, and you are filtering out distractions from your surroundings. People with ADHD, myself included, have difficulty doing this. A radio playing in the next room can act like an unwanted magnet to attention. But we also often struggle with distraction from […]
There is a lot more to color than most people realize. For example, color has been instrumental in experimental tests of the long-standing controversy about whether one’s language determines one’s mode of thinking. Do we all perceive colors in the same way, regardless of whether we have different words for, say, blue and green or […]
Human beings think. What’s more, we also think about our own thinking—that is, we monitor, recognize, and control our own cognitive processes. This ability is known as metacognition, and it allows us to make judgments of learning or knowing, for example when we ask ourselves questions such as “What do I already know about this topic? […]
There are many stories of dolphins saving people from various perilous situations including drowning and even shark attack. Until now, these events have been generally anecdotal and have been difficult to study systematically. However, the conspecific helping behaviour which may underlie these events is very interesting and has been scientifically documented on a few occassions. So-called […]
The latest impact factors for the Society’s journals have just been released and are shown in the table below: The data suggest that there may be an overall increase in the impact factors of the Society’s portfolio, although the number of years shown (3 years) is too short to permit us to be confident. However, it’s clearly […]
Can we improve human intelligence through training? Generations of researchers have tackled this apparently simple question, and yet, after approximately a century of efforts, the malleability of intelligence remains controversial. The potential payoff is high—imagine what it would mean if we could actually train intelligence—but the road to conclusive evidence on the matter appears to […]
So what’s this שטיק about working memory? Out of 71 posts on this site that we have published since starting out 9 months ago, 7 were about working memory or have at least mentioned it (here, here, here, here, here, and here). This is indicative of the importance of working memory to human cognition—and indeed, we have noted repeatedly that working memory explains roughly half the […]
If you have ever taken an intro class to sensation and perception, chances are that you have experienced the “waterfall illusion” as an example of motion aftereffects. You can try this yourself: Next time you stumble upon a waterfall, stare at it without moving your eyes for about a minute. When you then look at some […]