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.
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March 31, 2008
Category: Movement and exercise • Perception • Research
Researchers have known for some time that people are surprisingly accurate at visually judging distances to objects as far as 25 meters away. If you're allowed to briefly look at an object up to that distance away, then blindfolded, you'll...
Posted by Dave Munger at 2:28 PM • 13 Comments
March 28, 2008
Category: Face perception • Memory • Research
[This post was originally published in November of 2006] Do you recognize the person depicted in this video? (QuickTime required; the movie is below the fold)...
Posted by Dave Munger at 7:30 AM • 10 Comments
March 26, 2008
Category: Attention • Movement and exercise • Research • Video Games / Technology
This is the first study I've seen demonstrating that talking to passengers is any different from talking on a cell phone
Posted by Dave Munger at 8:49 AM • 21 Comments
March 25, 2008
Category: Face perception • Perception • Research
Do you recognize the faces in this picture? Sure you do -- you could recognize the authors of this blog anywhere, even upside-down. It might take you just a bit longer to realize that something isn't quite right with the...
Posted by Dave Munger at 8:13 AM • 10 Comments
March 24, 2008
Category: News
This coming Friday I'll be at the NISO Discovery Tools Forum in Chapel Hill, NC, to talk about ResearchBlogging.org, along with fellow ResearchBlogger and librarian Eric Schnell. Here's the abstract for our presentation: ResearchBlogging.org began simply as a way for...
Posted by Dave Munger at 10:49 AM • 1 Comments
March 21, 2008
Category: Casual Fridays
Everyone on ScienceBlogs seems to be talking about the latest Intelligent Design debacle. Apparently the extremely famous blogger PZ Myers attempted to attend a free screening of Expelled, a Ben Stein screed against "Darwinists." The security folks at the screening...
Posted by Dave Munger at 2:22 PM • 11 Comments
March 20, 2008
Category: Music • Perception • Research
Point-light displays are an amazing demonstration of how the visual system creates order out of what initially seems to be a random pattern. Take a look at this short movie (QuickTime required). Just looking at the first frame, it might...
Posted by Dave Munger at 3:10 PM • 11 Comments
March 18, 2008
Category: Learning and testing • Memory • Research
My first introduction to psychology was in a required social science class in college over 20 years ago, reading Sigmund Freud's Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis. The experience made me think I'd better be careful if I ever had kids: I...
Posted by Dave Munger at 2:55 PM • 4 Comments
March 17, 2008
Category: Development / Aging • Language • Research
There is a growing body of evidence that very young children -- too young even to talk -- still know plenty of words. When our kids were very young, it was quite clear that they knew the meanings of many...
Posted by Dave Munger at 4:00 PM • 11 Comments
March 14, 2008
Category: Casual Fridays
Music has been associated with drug use for decades -- from the flower children smoking weed at Woodstock to jazz great Charlie Parker getting hooked on heroin, it seems that every type of music has a drug that we associate...
Posted by Dave Munger at 3:23 PM • 11 Comments
March 13, 2008
Category: Language • Reasoning • Research
Psychologists often complain that neuroscientists get a disproportionate share of the glory when the mainstream media reports on their studies. It seems to some that an important new psychology study is often neglected or ignored entirely, while neuroscience studies of...
Posted by Dave Munger at 2:15 PM • 13 Comments
March 11, 2008
Category: Attention • Face perception • Research
It shouldn't take you long to notice what's wrong with this picture: Obviously Nora is defying gravity in this shot -- you can't help but notice it. But in your first glance at the photo, how quickly do you notice...
Posted by Dave Munger at 2:12 PM • 10 Comments
March 10, 2008
Category: Development / Aging • Face perception • Research • Social
What makes children so cute? Is it their adorably soft skin? Their innocently mischievous smiles? Their oversized eyes and tiny little mouths? Why is it that some kids are singled out for TV commercials and child beauty pageants, while others...
Posted by Dave Munger at 3:25 PM • 4 Comments
March 7, 2008
Category: Casual Fridays
A couple weeks back we discussed a study examining stereotypes about music fans and how they related to actual fans' real preferences. Unfortunately, the researchers couldn't test one of the most intriguing stereotypes about music fans: the types of drugs...
Posted by Dave Munger at 11:53 AM • 12 Comments
March 6, 2008
Category: Reasoning • Research
When I write an article for Cognitive Daily, I follow a similar pattern nearly every time. First I carefully read the journal article I'll be discussing. Next I take a break and work on something else. Then I get myself...
Posted by Dave Munger at 2:11 PM • 16 Comments
March 5, 2008
Any serious wine drinker will tell you she can distinguish between inexpensive, low-quality wine and the fancy premium-priced stuff. She may also claim the ability to discern the difference between wine made from different grapes, or produced in different regions...
Posted by Dave Munger at 2:53 PM • 13 Comments
