Dave Munger
dmunger
Posts by this author
July 18, 2006
Is beauty a universal standard? Or is it in the eye of the beholder? Some research on attractiveness, including some we've discussed on CogDaily, suggests that "average" faces are the most attractive, and that most people agree on what makes a pretty face.
But Johannes Hönekopp has recently…
July 17, 2006
[article originally posted July 6, 2005]
Today's article is one of my all-time favorites. It was originally written by Katherine Kiechel, an undergraduate at Williams College as part of her honors thesis, and could serve as a model for others in its simplicity and ingenuity (the report I'm…
July 14, 2006
The whole Munger family will be heading out of town for the next three weeks. Fortunately, there should be plenty to keep you occupied here while we're gone. We've written up a few posts in anticipation of the trip, and they've been scheduled to appear intermittently while we're gone.
In addition,…
July 13, 2006
The New York Times infographic on Lasik got me thinking: How many of our readers would consider getting Lasik surgery? Let's make this one a poll:
July 13, 2006
The NY Times has an excellent infographic showing exactly how the newest Lasik eye surgery process works:
The key modification to this technique is that the flap is now cut with a laser instead of a metal blade, reducing the chance of complications. I still think I'm going to stick with good old…
July 12, 2006
You think you've seen it all, and then you see this...
(via bOING bOING)
July 11, 2006
For many Americans, the healing process after the attacks of September 11, 2001, began with the publication of a special issue of the satirical newspaper The Onion. Headlines like those in the illustration below meant we could finally start to laugh about the tragedy:
But some have suggested…
July 11, 2006
We've written before about the positive impact of video games, on how playing video games can improve visual ability for certain tasks such as field of view and attentional blink. Now the researchers who conducted the initial study have completed some follow-up research. Chris Chatham has the…
July 10, 2006
Nearly all prejudicial attitudes are now taboo in America. Sixty years ago, it might have been acceptable to deny someone a job or service in a business because of skin color or gender, but now such overt discrimination is almost universally condemned. Even people with disabilities are accommodated…
July 6, 2006
We've reported here before on the research of Dennis Proffitt on the perception of distance -- how wearing a backpack can cause you to perceive distances as longer. Now the team has a new study, which is featured today in seedmagazine.com. In this study, they examine the perception of the steepness…
July 6, 2006
Deric Bownds has an excellent post about a proposed neurological mechanism for mellowing as we age. This study to me represents an example of good work that can be done using brain imaging. (Although we pointed to an article critical of fMRI last week, this was by no means meant to suggest that…
July 5, 2006
"Keep your eye on the ball" is a mantra I've heard applied to several sports: baseball, for hitting, football, for receiving, and golf, for teeing it up. It wasn't surprising to me when I read recently that cricketers also use this platitude to teach batsmen how to hit effectively.
The sum total of…
July 5, 2006
If you had to guess where in the world kids are the most enthusiastic about science and technology, you might figure that places like Norway and Japan would seriously outdistance, say, Uganda and Botswana. If you did, you'd have it exactly backwards. An article in the new online journal Science in…
July 3, 2006
Our Donors Choose Challenge, as you can see from the icon to the left, is now fully funded. Thanks so much to all the generous donors! We raised $2,169.13 to help kids learn about science and the arts.
Here's the ScienceBlogs total amount raised as of about 14 hours ago:
Total donations: $22,554.38…
June 30, 2006
The next Encephalon neuroscience carnival will be published on Monday, July 3, at The Neurophilosopher.
If you have a blog post or article to contribute, send your submissions to encephalon.host@gmail.com.
June 30, 2006
In just one day, we've funded nearly one third of the amount required for "The Shocking Simplicity of Electric Circuits" project. We can give these kids the passion for science with just a few more donations -- and today is the last day of our challenge. So if you just haven't gotten around to…
June 29, 2006
One of the amazing things about the Stroop Effect is how much good research is being done based on this simple phenomenon, over 70 years later. One of the neatest recent experiments was created by Peter Wühr and Florian Waszak. I think I've created a simple animation that replicates their results.…
June 29, 2006
A team of researchers in Japan has built a device that is capable of reproducing an impressively large array of smells, says a report in New Scientist.
The system will use 15 chemical-sensing microchips, or electronic noses, to pick up a broad range of aromas. These are then used to create a…
June 29, 2006
There's been a decent amount of press lately about the struggles of boys in education. More women than men go to college, and more graduate. But Jay Matthews of the Washington Post is skeptical. He cites an Education Sector report (full PDF here)
which claims that much of the hype about boys…
June 28, 2006
We've got just three days left for our Donors Choose Challenge. Based on the poll we conducted last week, the primary reason (short of being broke) for not donating is not seeing a worthwhile project. I've now added one more that I think is particularly worthy: The Shocking Simplicity of Electric…
June 28, 2006
When I play video games with my son Jim, I'm generally at a tremendous disadvantage. Most of the time, Jim has had more experience with the particular game we're playing, but even when we try a brand-new game, he just seems to get his bearings more quickly than I do. He doesn't have more experience…
June 28, 2006
Small Gray Matters is a new blog which claims to be "about brains and minds. What else do you need to know?"
For starters, I'd like to know who's writing it, but I'm prepared to be swayed by good content. The blog's first post doesn't disappoint in that regard: it's a spirited defense of…
June 27, 2006
In case you're reading this on RSS, or have trained yourself to ignore the links immediately to the right, I wanted to point you to Paul Bloom's excellent article on Seedmagazine.com. Why does an fMRI brain scan suddenly make a humdrum task suddenly seem like "real science?" Bloom points to one…
June 27, 2006
The BBC has an article about the latest computer "mind-reading" technology. It's not as sinister as it sounds: the computer is programmed to monitor human facial expressions and attempt to recognize the corresponding emotion.
Peter Robinson, professor of computer technology at the University of…
June 26, 2006
Developmental psychologists since Piaget have been interested in how well children are able to take the perspective of another. Piaget's laboratory had a large table with elaborate models on top; children who were able to take the perspective of a doll on the table and explain what the table looked…
June 26, 2006
Brainethics has a summary of a recent Science Magazine article about cross-cultural sharing behavior. The study set up three different sharing scenarios, then examined how cultures with different values with respect to sharing behaved:
These results demonstrate that there is a positive relationship…
June 26, 2006
The first edition of The Synapse is up over at Pure Pedantry. Jake Young has spearheaded the formation of this brand-new carnival, assembling a worthy collection of neuroscience posts. Be sure to check it out. The next edition will be on July 9 at A Blog Around the Clock, so if you missed this one…
June 23, 2006
Jonah Lehrer now has two posts slamming Malcolm Gladwell's Blink. The second post, currently ScienceBlogs' most emailed story, offers the ultimate slam, proclaiming that Gladwell is the "new Freud," a mere "prose stylist" who "wasn't particularly interested in the neurological foundations of his…
June 23, 2006
The brain can be a good multitasker, using the same systems for unrelated functions. For example, the sensorimotor system may be used for imagining objects and concepts. What's more, when one part of the brain fails to do is job, another part can sometimes fill in the gaps.
Yet some disorders do…
June 22, 2006
P. Diddy probably doesn't have to worry about this group horning in on his territory, but I bet the U of Oregon grad students had a lot of fun making this video: