dmunger | February 15, 2007This photo of the World Trade Center burning on September 11 attracted a lot of attention for a curious pattern in the smoke. Was it the face of God? Satan?
Of course it was just a random pattern in the smoke that briefly seemed to look like a face, but many people were not convinced by appeals to rationality. Why is it that people seem to see faces so many places that there aren't actually faces? The New York Times has an excellent article describing how and when we see faces.
As we've reported here before, even if you view a photo or painting at an extreme oblique angle, you can still see…
dmunger | February 14, 2007For children younger than three, most of us agree that crying is acceptable, especially if they are in physical pain. But even for adults, crying is acceptable during periods of grief. Indeed, we often look askance at a person who does not to cry at a funeral or memorial service of a close friend, loved one, or family member. And crying in such cases is not only acceptable, but helpful, both for men and women. From WebMD:
Men and women both feel better after crying, especially when experiencing a major loss.
"But men are more likely to cry as a result of positive feelings, like at sporting…
dmunger | February 13, 2007Take a look at this animation. One face will flash; then it will be followed by another face. Are the two faces the same or different? The change between faces could be a small one.
Did you notice a change? (You can repeat the movie once if you're not sure.) Let's make this one a poll:
Now try another animation:
Again, were the faces the same or different?
Most people are much better at identifying different human faces than identifying animal faces, which makes sense, since most people have more experience with other people than with animals.
Most adults are also better at distinguishing…
dmunger | February 13, 2007One of the worst jobs I ever had was in high school. I was a door-to-door salesman for our local newspaper. It seemed like a great job in 1983 -- just three hours a night, and I got paid $4.50 an hour plus $5 for every subscription I sold over 15 a week. We didn't even really have to sell subscriptions -- we got credit for a sale even if the customer just signed up for a free trial month.
Believe it or not, most people were nice to me when I knocked on their doors -- that wasn't the problem with the job. The problem was the other salesmen. We were all driven around in a crew van by our…
dmunger | February 12, 2007Lots of "other news" today!
Sense of smell keeps on sniffing, even as we get older.
How the past, present, and future are reconstructed in our minds.
Composites of "hottest" and "nottest" faces...
...and an explanation of what's going on here.
A new (to me) carnival, "Brain Blogging" -- strives to go "beyond the basic sciences."
Action video games improve visual acuity (in addition to other visual abilities).
Babies prefer faces to other images.
Do schools ignore government requirements for curricula?
Nice article on the best approach to decision-making.
How "umming" helps speech.
Darwin Day…
dmunger | February 12, 2007Face-composite software is commonly used to generate images of crime suspects. But how accurate is it? We've reported here on a study suggesting that building face-composites may actually harm the memory of eyewitnesses. Now a new review article is suggesting that there are additional problems with the system:
Facial composite systems produce a poor likeness of the intended face. For instance, studies in which individuals attempt to create composites of celebrities have yielded extremely poor results. In one particular study, only 2.8 percent of participants correctly named a well-known…
dmunger | February 9, 2007Today's study will explore how sound is related to perception of motion and illusions. We'll be examining a couple of different, really cool phenomena that may or may not be related.
If you've been reading CogDaily regularly, you might be familiar with some of the stimuli, but you won't have seen them combined in this way. It should be a lot of fun!
Perhaps most importantly, it doesn't matter what nationality you are; everyone should be on equal footing for this one as long as they have reasonably good hearing and vision.
Click here to participate
Since we didn't do a Casual Friday last week…
dmunger | February 9, 2007This week's article on the "most random" number was the most popular post ever on Cognitive Daily. The stats aren't all in yet, but so far the post has been viewed at least 40,000 times. It wasn't long ago that 40,000 was a good month for Cognitive Daily! Since comments and questions about the project were spread over at least four different threads, as well as at least a dozen posts on other blogs, I thought I'd sum up some of the questions about our poll and the results in one place.
We polled 347 CogDaily readers, asking them to simply "think of a random number between 1 and 20," and found…
dmunger | February 8, 2007
Should iPods be banned from crosswalks? Bloggers respond, and so does Jake Young.
A model of how the brain processes time.
Do cigarette warning labels work? Yep.
One reason to believe that IQ can be improved.
Do you like experimental psychology? How about experimental Philosophy?
Encephalon will be at Mind Hacks next week. Submit now or forever hold your peace.
P.S.: Sorry for the lack of "in other news" posts this week -- we've had a perfect storm of child illnesses and technical glitches. We should be back on a regular publication schedule for the foreseeable future.
dmunger | February 8, 2007Recently I attended a concert featuring the premier of an up-and-coming composer's work. She gave a brief talk before her piece was played, during which she explained the complex symbology of her work. The musical notes weren't just noises; they were intended to convey a meaning above and beyond a mere sequence of sounds. But if her music really did convey such deep meaning, why did she have to explain it to the audience beforehand? Can music ever express semantic meaning directly, without requiring a composer or someone else to "translate" for us?
Certainly not all music is as difficult to…
dmunger | February 8, 2007"Brain fitness" is all the rage lately -- the idea that by "exercising" your brain, you can keep your mental ability at high levels even as you age. The good news is that there's more science to back up this fad than in other recent gimmicks such as the Mozart Effect. The bad news is that "training your brain" takes a bit more work than popping a CD in the car stereo -- and the science to back it up is far from conclusive.
Undaunted, the Wall Street Journal had a panel of reviewers test six "brain fitness" products. Some of them even sound like they might be rather fun. The article,…
dmunger | February 7, 2007Mind Hacks has an excellent review of a case study that appears to contradict some "common knowledge" about the brain:
The hippocampus is thought to be essential for navigation. Surprisingly, a paper published last year reported that a London Taxi driver, who suffered hippocampus damage on both sides of the brain, could successfully navigate around much of London.
If the hippocampus is required, than how can we navigate without it? The researchers believe they have an answer for that as well:
They tested the driver in a complete computer simulation of London (pictured left) and discovered, to…
dmunger | February 6, 2007At a recent social psychology conference, one of the attendees kept an informal tally of how often presenters made negative statements about their own presentations. Out of 18 presenters, 11 made negative statements like
I've prepared a gosh-awful overhead
This is a gross oversimplification, or
We thought this study was pretty lame.
The statements weren't qualified in any way, just offered on their own as a preface to a portion of their presentation. Why would esteemed researchers find it worthwhile to make self-critical statements in front of their own colleagues? We're not talking here…
dmunger | February 6, 2007There's a fantastic discussion over at Text Savvy about the best way to teach multiplication, centered around this impressive video in support of traditional methods.
If you watch the video, make sure you also read Mr. Person's explanation of the problem. It really comes down to this: The traditional method of multiplication is more efficient, as his diagram demonstrates (traditional multiplication on the left, partial products on the right).
But also see Myrtle Hocklemeier's response:
1. If efficiency is your top priority, get a calculator.
2. Timed arithmetic quizzes don't measure math…
dmunger | February 5, 2007On Saturday, I posted a poll asking readers to simply pick a number between 1 and 20. I promised I'd explain what this is all about, so here goes.
The poll was inspired by this post on Pharyngula, which in turn was inspired by this article on Cosmic Variance. The idea is that 17 will always be the most common answer when people are asked to choose a number between 1 and 20. But neither Cosmic Variance nor Pharyngula offered a reasonable means of testing this proposition. That's where our poll came in. This morning, I took a look at our data, and with 347 responses, I can confirm that 17 is…
dmunger | February 5, 2007Greta has been promoted to the rank of full professor! Congratulations, Greta, you've completed your ascent of the mountain of academe:
When I mentioned this news to a friend at our Sunday pick-up soccer game, he asked me "so... what does that mean?" Good question.
First of all, it means she gets a raise. That's always a good thing, right? But it doesn't mean she gets tenure: at most schools, tenure accompanies the promotion from assistant to associate professor. Greta got tenure seven years ago. At Davidson, it means that she is eligible to participate in certain committees, with greater…
dmunger | February 3, 2007There's a meme going around lately, suggesting some pattern to how we guess random numbers. A few bloggers are trying to "test" it by asking their readers to email them lists of random numbers, or conducting a "study" in their comments. Why not use a poll?
IMPORTANT: Don't use the graphic as an aid. First, think of a random number between 1 and 20. Then record your response.
I'll explain what this is all about next week.
dmunger | February 2, 2007Two days before the Super Bowl, two interesting perspectives on the National Football League and how it treats its players. First, the New York Times has an article on the plight of former New England Patriots player Ted Johnson. Johnson claims he was ordered to participate in full-contact drills while he was recovering from a concussion. The resulting injury -- yet another concussion -- led Johnson to seek desperate measures in order to continue to play. Just before the 2004 Super Bowl friend began supplying him with amphetamines, which temporarily masked the effects of the repeated…
dmunger | February 1, 2007
For air travelers, a carbon tax won't make them stay home. This is bad news. Can someone please invent a fuel-cell-powered jet?
A preview of the computer jet-setters won't be allowed to buy.
How hallucinogens work.
Plato thought writing would destroy memory. What will digital camcorders do?
dmunger | February 1, 2007Today I'm going to be working with some students in Greta's course "Psychology Goes to the Movies" to help them write CogDaily-style reports on scholarly research. With any luck, you'll see their reports here this summer! I thought CogDaily readers might be interested in some of the principles I'll be sharing with Greta's students, so I'm reprinting them below. If you have any other suggestions for them or other science writers, feel free to add them in the comments section.
1. Find interesting research
This may seem like an obvious step, but there are a couple of problems with the way…