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Cognitive Daily

A new cognitive psychology article nearly every day

Profile

Dave and Greta Munger 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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June 30, 2008

Are MMORPGs "addictive"?

Category: ResearchSocialVideo Games / Technology

In our discussions of violence associated with video game play, we've frequently noted that there appear to be different effects depending on the type of video game. Some games are more violent than others, and some games reward violence while...

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June 27, 2008

Casual Fridays -- Summer break

Category: Casual Fridays

This is just a brief note to let our loyal Casual Friday readers know that we'll be going on a break for the summer. We should be able to maintain a semi-reasonable pace with the regular Cognitive Daily posts, but...

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June 26, 2008

How do you make a reputation for yourself?

Category: ResearchSocial

My high school experience, like that of nearly everyone who attended my school, was a perplexing one. It seemed there were only a few "popular" people -- those that everyone knew and liked -- and wanted to be like. Everyone...

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June 25, 2008

Help generate the initial list of subtopics for v.2 of ResearchBlogging.org

Category: General / Site news

We're still working hard on getting the next version of ResearchBlogging.org ready to go. I know this is taking a long time, but since we have a (semi) working system right now, we really want to get this right. It...

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June 23, 2008

Multi-tasking, task-switching, and humans -- or why I didn't finish writing this post three hours ago

Category: AttentionReasoningResearch

Do you multitask? I'm not talking about literally doing two things at once, like emailing while talking on the phone, or playing the trombone while washing the dishes. I'm talking about the more common phenomenon of starting one project before...

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June 21, 2008

Casual Fridays bonus round: Does anyone like Brazil nuts? Anyone?

Category: Casual Fridays

One of the things that motivated Nora and me to conduct the Casual Friday nuts study was our intense ambivalence toward the Brazil nut. It's so much bigger than the other nuts that it tends to dominate any mixture, even...

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June 20, 2008

Casual Fridays: Do grocery stores give us the right mix of nuts?

Category: Casual Fridays

Last week we asked our readers what their favorite types of mixed nuts were. Does the mixture that comes in the can actually approximate real-world preferences, or are the nut-packagers just giving us the cheapest nuts, with no allowances for...

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June 19, 2008

Does music help us learn language?

Category: LanguageMusicResearch

One of the first steps to learning a language is figuring out where one word ends and the next one begins. Since fluent speakers don't generally pause between words, it can be a daunting task. We've discussed one of the...

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June 17, 2008

New insight into what makes things appear "glossy"

Category: PerceptionResearch

What makes something look glossy? At first, it doesn't seem like a difficult question -- it's something smooth and reflective. But if you were to attempt to draw something that looked glossy, how would you to it? Now, the problem...

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June 16, 2008

What sound are you hearing? It may depend on the words you read

Category: LanguageMusicPerceptionResearch

Listen to this short audio clip: The clip plays two notes that are two full octaves apart. That's a greater range than many people can produce vocally. It should be easy for anyone to tell the difference between these two...

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June 13, 2008

Casual Fridays: The right mixture of nuts

Category: Casual Fridays

Last weekend Nora and I went on a hike in the Smoky Mountains. Whenever we go hiking, we make trail mix -- usually just cashews and raisins. This time, however, we had some mixed nuts left over from a party...

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June 12, 2008

Babies have boundary extension, too

Category: Development / AgingMemoryPerceptionResearch

Boundary extension -- misremembering the boundaries of a scene as wider than they really are -- has been observed in adults as old as 84 and children as young as 6. But for kids much younger than 6, the phenomenon...

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June 11, 2008

Insight into how we tell whether something's alive

Category: Movement and exercisePerceptionResearch

Take a look at these three pictures. Can you tell which is a human, which is a cat, and which is a pigeon? How about these three pictures? A little easier? It would be even easier, of course, if the...

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June 10, 2008

Office noise: Are your homicidal thoughts about your noisy office-mate justified?

Category: ResearchSocial

A reader recently emailed to ask us if there's been any research about whether poor working conditions such as a noisy or overheated office affect motivation and efficiency. Wouldn't it be great if you could document to your employer that...

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June 5, 2008

Body position affects memory for events

Category: MemoryMovement and exerciseResearch

This article was originally posted on March 27, 2007 When we see a familiar face, or even a photo of a favorite car or pet, we're often flooded with memories from our past. Sometimes just seeing a person or object...

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June 4, 2008

What's more convincing than talking about brains? Pictures of brains!

Category: ReasoningResearch

Not long ago we discussed work led by Deena Skolnick Weisberg showing that most people are more impressed by neuroscience explanations of psychological phenomena than plain-old psychology explanations. Talking about brains, it seems, is more convincing than simply talking about...

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