April 30, 2008
Category: News
The man behind the amazing Contrast Asynchrony illusion has started a blog! Arthur Shapiro tells me he has a backlog of literally thousands of illusions. He promises to offer a new illusion every week, along with an explanation of the...
Read on »
Posted by Dave Munger at 10:05 AM • 3 Comments
April 29, 2008
Category: Face perception • Memory • Research • Social
Humans are exceptionally good at recognizing faces they've seen before. It doesn't take much study to accurately recall whether or not you've seen a particular face. However, this pattern breaks down when faces come from unfamiliar races. A white person...
Read on »
Posted by Dave Munger at 3:17 PM • 15 Comments
April 28, 2008
Category: News
Thank you for "choosing" to read Encephalon #44 here at Cognitive Daily. Every two weeks, Encephalon "selects" the best psychology and neuroscience blog posts from around the blogosphere, giving readers the chance to "decide" which ones they'd like to investigate...
Read on »
Posted by Dave Munger at 12:51 PM • 6 Comments
April 27, 2008
Category: News
CogDaily will be hosting Encephalon tomorrow. There's still time to make your submissions -- just send an email to encephalon.host -- @ -- gmail -- . -- com (remove dashes). We should be able to include any submissions received before...
Read on »
Posted by Dave Munger at 3:31 PM • 0 Comments
April 26, 2008
Category: News
There's a fun little test over at the BBC: Spot the fake smile (via Green Ideas). Try to spot the difference between fake smiles and real smiles! I got 17 out of 20. It helps to understand the research about...
Read on »
Posted by Dave Munger at 8:28 AM • 47 Comments
April 25, 2008
Category: Casual Fridays
Last week's Casual Friday study was all about money. The basic question was simply what it means to be rich -- how much income and net worth does it take before you consider someone to be wealthy? We received over...
Read on »
Posted by Dave Munger at 3:07 PM • 21 Comments
April 24, 2008
Category: Research • Social • Video Games / Technology
Although not all games are equal, there's plenty of evidence that playing some violent video games can cause aggressive real-world behavior. Sites like addictinggames.com offer popular games whose sole point is to play the role of a hit-man or even...
Read on »
Posted by Dave Munger at 2:44 PM • 31 Comments
Category: News
ScienceBlogs.de, our German counterpart, is featuring an English-language interview with Nobel Laureate Eric Kandel: Pertinent to Tuesday's post, he discusses free will, and also drug treatment for behavior disorders, the unification of the sciences, and Sigmund Freud....
Read on »
Posted by Dave Munger at 7:21 AM • 1 Comments
April 22, 2008
Category: Reasoning • Research • Social
Do we have free will? While some may see the question as trivial, it's a challenging topic that has been actively debated for centuries. Whether or not you believe a god is involved, a case can be made that free...
Read on »
Posted by Dave Munger at 3:31 PM • 28 Comments
April 21, 2008
Category: Fun and games
I know CogDaily is supposed to be a psychology web site, but sometimes, you have a question you simply must know the answer to. I frequently need to boil a mug of water, and I've often wondered what the most...
Read on »
Posted by Dave Munger at 2:53 PM • 59 Comments
April 18, 2008
Category: Casual Fridays
After spending all last weekend preparing our income tax return, I must have money on my mind. So this week's Casual Fridays study is about money. I don't want to tell you much more about it before you participate in...
Read on »
Posted by Dave Munger at 11:53 AM • 39 Comments
April 17, 2008
Category: Emotion • Research • Social
If you saw a headline like this one in your local newspaper, you might first think it's some type of info-tisement sponsored by the floral industry. You'd probably be right, too. So what is this headline doing in Cognitive Daily?...
Read on »
Posted by Dave Munger at 2:33 PM • 21 Comments
April 16, 2008
Category: General / Site news
The 43rd Encephalon is available over at GNIF Brain Blogger. It's a fantastic collection of the best psychology and neuroscience blogging from the past two weeks. The next Encephalon will be hosted right here at Cognitive Daily on April 28....
Read on »
Posted by Dave Munger at 1:37 PM • 0 Comments
April 15, 2008
Category: Movement and exercise • Reasoning • Research
Clicking on the link below will bring up an image in a new window (you may need to disable pop-up blockers to do this). The picture contains five rows of asterisks. Your job is to count them as quickly as...
Read on »
Posted by Dave Munger at 2:07 PM • 11 Comments
April 14, 2008
Category: Emotion • Research • Social
How often do you take time to reflect on the things you're grateful for? Once a month? Once a week, at church, perhaps? Maybe you say "grace" at mealtime every day. But even prayers that do express gratefulness, such as...
Read on »
Posted by Dave Munger at 10:34 AM • 16 Comments
April 11, 2008
Category: General / Site news
Sorry, no Casual Friday this week -- I'm frantically finishing up our tax returns. We actually did a Casual Friday about tax procrastination a couple years back though, so if you need a Casual Friday fix, check that one out:...
Read on »
Posted by Dave Munger at 2:19 PM • 0 Comments