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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June 30, 2008
Category: Research • Social • Video 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...
Posted by Dave Munger at 1:13 PM • 30 Comments
June 27, 2008
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...
Posted by Dave Munger at 3:02 PM • 3 Comments
June 26, 2008
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...
Posted by Dave Munger at 12:35 PM • 11 Comments
June 25, 2008
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...
Posted by Dave Munger at 2:48 PM •
June 23, 2008
Category: Attention • Reasoning • Research
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...
Posted by Dave Munger at 3:03 PM • 21 Comments
June 21, 2008
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...
Posted by Dave Munger at 10:00 AM • 29 Comments
June 20, 2008
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...
Posted by Dave Munger at 4:24 PM • 12 Comments
June 19, 2008
Category: Language • Music • Research
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...
Posted by Dave Munger at 8:32 AM • 16 Comments
June 17, 2008
Category: Perception • Research
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...
Posted by Dave Munger at 3:00 PM • 2 Comments
June 16, 2008
Category: Language • Music • Perception • Research
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...
Posted by Dave Munger at 2:22 PM • 6 Comments
June 13, 2008
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...
Posted by Dave Munger at 11:49 AM • 12 Comments
June 12, 2008
Category: Development / Aging • Memory • Perception • Research
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...
Posted by Dave Munger at 11:50 AM • 4 Comments
June 11, 2008
Category: Movement and exercise • Perception • Research
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...
Posted by Dave Munger at 3:33 PM • 4 Comments
June 10, 2008
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...
Posted by Dave Munger at 3:11 PM • 26 Comments
June 5, 2008
Category: Memory • Movement and exercise • Research
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...
Posted by Dave Munger at 1:53 PM • 7 Comments
June 4, 2008
Category: Reasoning • Research
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...
Posted by Dave Munger at 1:00 PM • 16 Comments
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