March 31, 2009
Category: Research
Take another look at this picture of the Rokeby Venus from last week's post on mirrors in art: Now, imagine you're actually in the room with Venus, as depicted in this painting. You suspend your astonishment long enough to conduct...
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Posted by Dave Munger at 3:26 PM • 14 Comments •
March 27, 2009
Category: Casual Fridays
Most of us believe that the things we do to stay safe make a lot of sense. But some other people clearly are being unreasonably careful. One might even call them "paranoid." But is there a general consensus about how...
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Posted by Dave Munger at 5:25 PM • 23 Comments •
Category: Casual Fridays
Here's a bonus bit of analysis from last week's Casual Fridays study. In addition to asking respondents how familiar they were with our selection of stories, we also asked them to describe some detail of the story that was independently...
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Posted by Dave Munger at 3:27 PM • 30 Comments •
March 26, 2009
Category: Research
The Rokeby Venus by Diego Velázquez is a good example of a very common illusion in many paintings: Most viewers would say this picture depicts a woman viewing her own reflection in a mirror. But based on the orientation of...
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Posted by Dave Munger at 2:13 PM • 23 Comments •
March 23, 2009
Category: Research
Last week I mentioned that Greta had been discussing a study with her class that was related to the fable of the Fox and the Grapes. When most of her students hadn't heard the story, it provided the opportunity for...
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Posted by Dave Munger at 3:28 PM • 5 Comments •
March 20, 2009
Category: Casual Fridays
Last week's Casual Fridays study was inspired by an event in Greta's classroom. She had assumed that most of her students would be familiar with the story of the Fox and the Grapes, which goes as follows: ONE hot summer's...
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Posted by Dave Munger at 4:27 PM • 28 Comments •
March 19, 2009
Category: Research
Suppose you're running a small organization with five motor vehicles used by your staff and you want to replace them with more fuel-efficient versions, both to save money and reduce your organization's carbon footprint. Each vehicle travels 10,000 miles a...
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Posted by Dave Munger at 2:25 PM • 25 Comments •
March 18, 2009
Category: Research
Take a look at these two pictures of the Mona Lisa: They're derived from a series of images of the famous painting that had been obscured by random noise filters (like when your old analog TV wasn't getting a signal),...
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Posted by Dave Munger at 1:31 PM • 9 Comments •
March 16, 2009
Category: Research
Attentional blink is a fascinating phenomenon that occurs when we see images, words, or numbers presented in a rapid sequence. As images flash by at about one every tenth of a second, you're asked to look for two in particular....
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Posted by Dave Munger at 4:41 PM • 8 Comments •
March 13, 2009
Category: Fun and games
In honor of Pi Day, Greta is baking one of our favorite Chicago-style pizzas. This is our reconstruction of the pizza we ate as undergraduates at the University of Chicago. We spent a lot of time hanging out at a...
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Posted by Dave Munger at 7:41 PM • 18 Comments •