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Signal Detection: Decision Making in Uncertainty
We all experience uncertainty: How did I do on that test? What do they think of me? Where did I leave my keys? Is my phone ringing? In these and other uncertain situations, we have to take the evidence we have and make our best guess about the answer. Sometimes we’re right, and sometimes we’re…
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Mind the Explanatory Gap
12329159165_a12a8df2ca_b Dualism is dead – it’s been dead for a while now, actually, and is beginning to smell a bit. Somebody ought to take it out. Ask any scientist, philosopher, or academic involved in the study of the mind and you will discover this in no uncertain terms for yourself. The notion that the mind…
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Outreach Event: Brain Awareness Week 2015!
Nicco Reggente leads the discussion on cognitive psychology! Imagine your typical morning. You crave some sugary cereal to get you fueled for the day ahead. You dash out the door to realize you forgot your keys. And – especially for you teenagers – as you’re heading out to school, you realize that you’d rather go…
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Psychology and the Everyday
I’d like to start off a bit unusually today. Specifically, I’d like to make a request of you, dear reader. Nothing terribly difficult, but I realize it’s strange to have an article ask you to do something. If you’re on board so far, I’d like to ask you to choose a number between 1 and…
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What color is the dress, really?
One of the top social media items today regards the color of the above dress. Is it blue and black? Or white and gold? The internet is in a disarray and a great debate has ensued. Even Taylor Swift has chimed in (her vote is blue and black). I see white with a gold fringe.…
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How to Take Good Notes: Go Low-Tech
More and more students are opting to take notes on laptops to save trees and – they assume – take better notes. But is this assumption correct? According to the findings UCLA’s Dr. Danny Oppenheimer recently published in Psychological Science , these students are wrong: in a study of note-taking comparing handwritten to typed notes, Meuller…
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How do we see so many colors on a digital screen?
How can we possibly perceive a world of colors from just red, green, and blue, the colors of lights in TV, computer, and phone screens? The answer has to do with the way our visual system is set up: We have three different kinds of cones in the retina which respond most to what we…
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Theory of Mind: the Movie Magic in You
Film stands out as a particularly effective medium in conveying psychology to the public.
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Jumping for joy on four paws: Neurological evidence of emotion in dogs
Bri’s dog Rainey Running with Rainey is simultaneously the best thing and the worst thing. As a joint new year’s resolution to get in better shape, we’ve been trying to run together several times a week. Yesterday, as we started out in the warm afternoon sunshine, my iPod jamming away to White Panda’s mashup of…
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Serial: the Case of Memory
Serial has quickly become an international obsession. From the master storytellers of This American Life, the focal story of the inaugural season is about details surrounding the 1999 conviction of then high-school student Adnan Syed for the murder of ex-girlfriend Hae Min Lee. A new episode is released every Thursday (this week will be the…