dmunger

Take a look at this video (click on the image to play). It's pretty clear what's going on -- the green dot bumps into the red dot, causing it to move: But what about this one? With this movie, it's harder to say: some people would say the green dot passes through the red dot, turning red and…

One of the first questions our son Jim asks when a new movie comes out is "what's it rated?" The more "adult" the rating, the more appealing the movie is to him: PG is the lowest rating he'll even consider, PG-13 is better, and R is best. Since he's only 14, we don't take him to many R-rated movies…

In 1973, a massive study of almost 400,000 Dutch men appeared to confirm what anecdotal evidence and even some scientific research had led scholars to suspect: The first-born child in a family tends to be the most intelligent. The researchers, Lillian Belmont and Francis Marolla, found that within…

Sorry I'm posting this so late this week -- I was having problems connecting to the Internet earlier today, and hey, it's Friday, so I had plans for the evening. But it is still Friday, so you can't complain too much. This week's study is on a topic of particular interest on Fridays: drinking.…

Last week's Casual Friday survey asked readers to describe how they expect other drivers to behave when merging onto the freeway. Now that the survey has been completed, I can let you in on a bit more of the observations that motivated the survey. I live in North Carolina, and I like to visit the…

Twelve years ago, Greta and I were awakened by a rattling on the door of our Bronx apartment. It was about three A.M.; our children were asleep in the next room. "What should I do?" Greta whispered to me. She had woken first and was holding the deadbolt on the door locked so the intruder couldn't…

My son Jim's favorite game, World of Warcraft, only works on my computer, which usually resides in the kitchen. Inevitably, Jim's often playing his game while Greta and I are making dinner, and I have to say, the most annoying thing about the game isn't the violence or the sound effects -- it's the…

Clicking on the image below will take you to a short Quicktime movie. Make sure you have your sound turned up, because I've recorded a few sentences that play along with the movie. Your job is to determine, as quickly as possible, if each sentence is grammatically correct -- while you focus your…

This week's Casual Friday survey was inspired by what I observe as I drive in different parts of the country. It seems that nearly everywhere I go, there's a slightly different expectation for how drivers will respond to others. Given that Cognitive Daily has an amazingly diverse global audience,…

Last Friday, we asked readers to identify changes in a painting by Eugène Delacroix, Christopher Columbus and His Son at La Rábida. For the test, the picture flashed maddeningly between its original state and a doctored version Greta made in Photoshop. Here's the original: We admit it -- we were…

Kids in America grow up in a society that overwhelmingly believes in life after death. At the same time, these same kids grow up learning more and more about the nature of living organisms, and what makes something living or dead. At some point, these two belief systems inevitably collide: pure…

Disney's purchase of Pixar makes it clear that computer-generated (CGI) animation appears to be the wave of the future in movies. But one difficulty with CGI animation is conveying realistic emotions. While film animators (whether they use computers or not) can use artistic license to achieve the…

January 27 is Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's 250th birthday. In honor of the event, Greta Munger is giving a talk entitled "In the Mood: The Real Mozart Effect" discussing how scientific research addresses the claim that listening to the music of Mozart actually makes you more intelligent. If you're in…

When I was a kid, school lunches didn't offer choice. I paid $1.10, and I was given four plops of foodlike substance. The entrees had names like "salisbury steak," "lasagne," or "beef stroganoff," but they all tasted about the same. Our "vegetable" was usually overcooked peas or green beans. There…

This week's study is a simple test. You'll first be directed to a Quicktime movie of a painting. The painting will flash repeatedly, changing slighly between flashes. You have 9 seconds to identify the change; then your browser will automatically redirect to a survey, with (as usual) 5 questions to…

The results of the first Casual Friday survey are in, and I have to say, I'm impressed at the level of response. Greta mentioned to one of her colleagues that we had collected 213 responses in five days, and his eyes lit up with excitement. Just to give you an idea of how large this sample is,…

To say college students* aren't well-known for their efficient sleep habits might be the most dramatic understatement since Washington observed that Valley Forge winters are "a bit nippy." I can remember dozing off with my head in a pile of books at the library when I was in college, then waking…

Chad Orzel has challenged the ScienceBloggers to come up with the greatest experiments in their respective fields. While Greta and I are reluctant to say this is the greatest experiment ever (there are so many great experiments!), we both independently came up with the same one: Roger Shepard and…

Point-light displays can tell us an amazing amount about other people. Looking only at a few glowing spots corresponding to joints and set in motion, we can tell what people are doing, whether they are over- or underweight, and even identify a friend among strangers. We can also identify animals or…

Now that we're settling in to our new home, we'd like to introduce a fun new feature to Cognitive Daily: Casual Fridays. Every Friday, we'll post a quick, nonscientific survey or experiment for you to participate in. These "studies" will be very, very short -- fewer than five questions for surveys…

There was a fascinating article in the Washington Post last May about Dilbert creator Scott Adams' battle with focal dystonia. Though the symptoms of this disorder are involuntary muscle contractions (in Adams' case, his right pinky finger), the root of the problem is in the brain. For Adams, it…

Welcome to the new Cognitive Daily! If you've been a regular visitor to the old Cognitive Daily, then I don't expect you'll find much has changed. Cognitive Daily, whether in our old digs or with our snazzy new host, is a great place to read about peer-reviewed psychology research explained in…

The Flying Spaghetti Monster (source: verganza.org) is a satirical retort to advocates of "intelligent design," created as a joke to mock the belief that some "intelligent designer" created life. While the Flying Spaghetti Monster is funny, no one takes it seriously. Meanwhile, belief in a…

My son Jim loved his bottle when he was a baby. By about 15 months of age, he loved baby formula so much that he was going through over a hundred dollars' worth a week -- more than the rest of the food budget for the entire family! (Yes, we were buying the powdered stuff, not pre-made formula.)…

Much of the research on violent video games, like a vast proportion of all psychological research, has focused on college students. This shouldn't be surprising, since most college psychology departments require students to participate in experiments as a part of the Introduction to Psychology…

Kids love robots. I have a three-year-old friend who can identify the 1950s cult icon Robbie the Robot at 20 paces. My own son Jim could do an impressive multi-voiced impression of R2D2 by age five. Now that real robots are beginning to be everyday household items (when I was a kid, if I'd known I'…

What is your mind doing when you think about something? For decades, the prevailing wisdom was that when you imagine, say, the scent of a flower or your lover's perfume, your mind is doing something different from when you actually smell those things. The metaphor was a computer: The hardware for…

Toddlers learn new words at an astonishing rate—an average, according to Steven Pinker, of over a word every two hours. Yet attempts to drill children to improve vocabulary are often frustrating. Kids seem to learn words better through observing the environment than they do by rote. So what exactly…

How do we know when we see a beautiful body? Is it some social standard such as thinness or proportion? Do we simply think that bodies that are closest to "normal" are also most beautiful? We know that to be the case with faces, where faces that closest to "average" are generally rated as more…

There is little doubt that the cognitive demands of conversation can affect our awareness of the world around us. Everyone has a story of a near-miss collision with some clueless airhead driving who was jabbering away on the cell phone. A co-worker once tearfully told me of the time she was in an…