When we read stories, we are transported into magical worlds. That magical world may be another person’s life, a point in the distant past, or it may be a world full of magic and wizardry. One of the most remarkable things we do when we read is to imagine things we cannot ever see or […]
We all want more power. Statistical power, that is, to detect an effect in the presence of noise even if it is small. But is this always true? Power seems to be something we should all strive for, just like replicability. The reality is however a bit more nuanced: A few weeks ago I wrote about the […]
Where is the cheese? Within-compound spatial learning in rats Spatial cognition is crucial for our survival as it allows us to remember where to find food, water and shelter. But, with a vast amount of information surrounding us, which of the many cues do we actually use when trying to reach a goal? And how […]
Cristiano Ronaldo (Real Madrid) is currently soccer’s best penalty kicker in La Liga with 35 goals in 37 penalties, which translates to a stunning 94.6% success rate. But really, how hard can it be? With a goal standing eight feet high and eight yards wide just 12 yards away from these professional soccer players, how could one […]
There is physics. Then there is psychology. And never the twain shall meet? No, quite to the contrary: The nature of the relationship between the physical world and its psychological representation is among the most studied—and understood—of all mental phenomena. For more than 150 years, psychophysicists have been studying the mapping between physical quantities, such as weight […]
“Magic mirror in my hand, who is the fairest in the land?” Grimm and Grimm (1812) were among the first to note that mirrors do not always provide the perceiver with the desired or expected result. Two centuries later, our methodologies have become vastly more sophisticated but researchers are still fascinated by how people process information in […]
“I see a train wreck looming”—Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman did not mince words in a 2012 email to colleagues in which he drew attention to what he considered a potential replication crisis in at least some areas of psychology. Kahneman’s skepticism was fed by failed attempts to replicate classic priming studies, increasing concerns about replicability in psychology more […]
There will come a time when George W. Bush and Barack Obama will be remembered as poorly as Millard Fillmore and Chester Arthur are today, according to Psychonomic researchers Henry Roediger and Andrew DeSoto, who have examined how rapidly well-known people are forgotten from our collective historical memories. Their work appeared in Science last week after being presented […]
What’s the value of knowing the Emissions of CH4 from Enteric Fermentation in Cattle in the Caribbean in 2010? (It’s 536.8272 gigagrams, by the way.) According to McKinsey and Company, publicly available “open data”—particularly government data—can add between $3 and $5 trillion to the global economy each year. The availability of such data is said to help companies […]
“This is the operative statement. The others are inoperative.” This 1973 announcement by Richard Nixon’s press secretary, Ron Ziegler, effectively admitted to the mendacity of all previous statements issued by the White House on the Watergate scandal. Most flip-flops by politicians are less monumental, although they can sometimes haunt an entire election campaign: During the […]