Research:
Category: Research
Take a group of 18- and 19-year-old women, college freshmen and sophomores. Then test them to find out who has the most social anxiety: who's most nervous about dealing with other people, particularly in public situations. What would be the...
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Posted by Dave Munger at 12:04 PM • 5 Comments •
Category: Research
New parents can come up with a seemingly endless array of vexing questions about their infants, from the best brand of stroller to the ideal song to sing them to sleep. The questions begin well before the child is born:...
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Posted by Dave Munger at 4:23 PM • 5 Comments •
Category: Research
Take a look at the following pictures of U.S. dimes. As you can see, they are slightly different from one another -- the date is in the incorrect spot on one of them. Can you tell which one is "wrong"?...
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Posted by Dave Munger at 3:37 PM • 40 Comments •
Category: Research
I've always been amazed by people who are truly bilingual. While I've studied languages in school, I've never been able to seamlessly switch between languages, and even my best non-English language, French, is choppy at best. Compare this to the...
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Posted by Dave Munger at 2:01 PM • 26 Comments •
Category: Research
[Originally posted January, 2007] Nearly all video games that offer a first-person perspective -- where the view on-screen simulates what a real person would see as she navigates through the virtual environment -- also include a virtual map to help...
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Posted by Dave Munger at 12:31 PM • 5 Comments •
Category: Research
[Originally posted in April 2007] One "trick" dieters often use is to put their food on a smaller plate. The idea is to fool yourself into thinking you're eating more food than you really are. But doesn't our stomach tell...
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Posted by Dave Munger at 10:48 AM • 13 Comments •
Category: Research
[Originally posted in February, 2007] When you look out the window and then look away, how do you remember what you saw? Do you hold a picture of the window in your head, frame and all? What about a photo?...
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Posted by Dave Munger at 10:21 AM • 9 Comments •
Category: Research
There's lots of research suggesting that we may have something like a "number line" in our head: The SNARC effect says that if you normally read numbers from left to right, you're faster to react to small numbers with your...
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Posted by Dave Munger at 5:15 PM • 8 Comments •
Category: Research
When Nora was born, Jim was just 19 months old, and still unable to communicate other than with the most basic words (ba-ba, da-da, na-na). But we could tell right away that while he liked his new sister, he was...
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Posted by Dave Munger at 3:37 PM • 31 Comments •
Category: Research
It's pretty obvious to most people that the two shoes in this picture are the same size: But if you actually took a ruler to your computer display it would show that the image of my right shoe is nearly...
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Posted by Dave Munger at 4:12 PM • 9 Comments •