A new cognitive psychology article nearly every day
Cognitive Daily reports nearly every day on fascinating peer-reviewed developments in cognition from the most respected scientists in the field.
Greta Munger is Professor of Psychology at Davidson College whose works include The History of Psychology: Fundamental Questions. Dave Munger is co-founder and president of ResearchBlogging.org and a writer whose works include Researching Online. And yes, he is married to Greta.
Stay abreast of your favorite bloggers' latest and greatest via e-mail, via a daily digest.
December 31, 2007
Category: Attention • Memory • Perception • Research
[Originally posted on November 7, 2005] What does it mean to have a gut feeling that you remember something? You see someone you recognize in a coffee shop. Do you remember her from high school? Or maybe you saw her...
Posted by Dave Munger at 9:56 AM • 2 Comments
December 28, 2007
Category: Opinion
Over at BPR3, a reader brought up an interesting question about the nature of peer-reviewed research, which I thought was relevant to our readers here as well. I'm reposting my entire response below. The system of peer review, the bulwark...
Posted by Dave Munger at 10:31 AM • 14 Comments
December 27, 2007
Category: Emotion • Research • Social
Earlier this week we discussed the relationship between life satisfaction and other measures of well-being, finding that for measures such as relative income, the happiest people weren't always the best-off. For relationships, however, the happiest individuals also seem to do...
Posted by Dave Munger at 9:30 AM • 5 Comments
December 26, 2007
Category: Development / Aging • Perception • Research
[Originally posted on February 20, 2006] Here's a picture of our daughter Nora at about 3 months of age. She looks like she's fairly aware of the events going on around her (arguably more aware than she sometimes appears now,...
Posted by Dave Munger at 9:57 AM • 10 Comments
December 24, 2007
Category: Emotion • Research • Social
Happiness is associated with a lot of good things in life. People who are happier tend to get better job ratings, make more money, be more likely to get married, and be more satisfied with their marriages than people who...
Posted by Dave Munger at 9:16 AM • 12 Comments
December 21, 2007
Category: Opinion
I just finished reading Jonah Lehrer's book Proust was a Neuroscientist. Quick review: good book, very fun read, and I'm happy to recommend it to almost everyone. I just have one small quibble. For the quibble to make any sense,...
Posted by Greta Munger at 11:47 AM • 6 Comments
December 20, 2007
Category: Opinion
Last year, a friend of Greta's died tragically young. He was a pillar of the community, and Greta was honored to learn that he wanted her to play the oboe at his memorial service, which would be attended by hundreds...
Posted by Dave Munger at 8:36 AM • 29 Comments
December 19, 2007
Category: Face perception • Research • Taste
Do smells have an impact on how we judge people? Certainly if someone smells bad, we may have a negative impression of the person. But what if the smell is so subtle we don't consciously notice it? Research results have...
Posted by Dave Munger at 5:00 PM • 1 Comments
December 17, 2007
Category: Emotion • Face perception • Research
This past weekend, I went to two different holiday parties. While many of the people at the parties were friends, I was also introduced to a couple dozen new people -- out of town guests of the hosts, friends of...
Posted by Dave Munger at 3:58 PM • 10 Comments
December 14, 2007
Category: Casual Fridays
A few weeks ago, I was excited to learn that a project I'm working on got written up on NPR's News Blog. However, I was less excited when I saw the way my own status was described: Dave Munger, a...
Posted by Dave Munger at 1:53 PM • 27 Comments
December 13, 2007
Category: Attention • Memory • Research
The human perceptual system is able to enforce a large array of illusions on our conscious experience. Most importantly, we hold the illusion of a complete and vivid picture of our surroundings, while in fact we selectively ignore nearly everything...
Posted by Dave Munger at 2:32 PM • 2 Comments
December 11, 2007
Category: Research
Listen to this short recording: It's a sequence that repeats every sixth beat. But when we're listening to music, we usually prefer to divide rhythm into two- or three-beat patterns (duple or triple rhythm). In this case, the sequence doesn't...
Posted by Dave Munger at 2:32 PM • 9 Comments
Category: General / Site news
Scienceblogs has launched the beta version of its German-language site. You can check it out at Scienceblogs.de. The site looks great -- I've never regretted not learning German more! It also offers a feature I'd like to see here on...
Posted by Dave Munger at 1:53 PM • 5 Comments
December 10, 2007
Category: News
There's been a lot of discussion online lately about the relative importance of the position of an author name. Is it more impressive to be a first author on a report? If so, how much? John Lynch made a graph...
Posted by Dave Munger at 11:42 AM • 5 Comments
December 7, 2007
Category: Casual Fridays
This week's Casual Fridays study is just a quick reading comprehension test. Is that all it is? I can't tell you. Why not just try it and find out for yourself? Click here to participate As usual, the survey is...
Posted by Dave Munger at 12:30 PM •
December 6, 2007
Category: Attention • Face perception • Language • Movement and exercise • Research
When we are trying to understand what someone is saying, we rely a lot on the movement of their face. We pay attention to how their faces move, and that informs our understanding of what is said. The classic example...
Posted by Dave Munger at 2:08 PM • 27 Comments
