Need to find a needle? Make the haystack disappear by perceptual adaptation

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 […]

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Need to invent a light bulb? Take a nap to boost your attentional skills

Why do we sleep? Apparently, this simple question has no simple answer, despite decades of research. According to leading sleep researcher William Dement, “the only reason we need to sleep that is really, really solid is because we get sleepy.” But just because we may not know why we need to sleep doesn’t prevent us from knowing […]

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Turning Dr. Strangelove into George W. Bush: Determinants of accentedness

There are some 40,000,000 foreign-born people living in the United States today. Most of those people hail from Asia or Latin America and the Caribbean, and their native language is therefore most likely not English. And indeed, it is not uncommon for people in the U.S.—and also the U.K., Canada, and Australia—to speak English with a […]

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Update from the Federation of Associations in Behavioral & Brain Sciences

I am posting this message on behalf of the Federation of Associations in Behavioral & Brain Sciences: There is a great deal of activity on Capitol Hill right now, and I want to give you an update. In Monday’s newsletter, I wrote articles about two bills affecting NSF funding (see links below). Here’s additional information on […]

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The transcendental mind: Memory in your head and in your smartphone

When do you look something up, and when do you try to remember it?  One of the hallmarks of humans is our ability to store and access information in the environment around us as well as in our own central nervous systems. We have an external memory and an internal memory. Many tasks involve moment-to-moment trade-offs between the two. The “soft […]

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Stepping right when your next destination is straight ahead

Stepping right when your next destination is straight ahead: Your ultimate plans guide your navigation now When Christopher Columbus reached the new world, he famously thought he had circumnavigated the globe and landed in India. This may be history’s most famous navigational error but it is far from the only one. Although people are quite good […]

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When Burkina Faso does not prevent birds from flying backwards: Output effects in knowledge tests

What’s the capital of Burkina Faso? Which bird can fly backwards? What was the first human invention to break the sound barrier? Questions of this type probe what is called “semantic memory”, the repository of our general knowledge, which is known to be organized by meaning rather than by autobiographical cues. For example, you may […]

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From vipassana to P300: neurocognitive markers of the art of chocolate eating

Like many mental health professional, the UK’s famed National Health Service (NHS) notes that “it can be easy to rush through life without stopping to notice much. Paying more attention to the present moment – to your own thoughts and feelings, and to the world around you – can improve your mental wellbeing.” This ability to “live in […]

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