dmunger | January 31, 2007
As a lefty, how did I miss this one when it came out? Left-handers "think faster".
Why can't people tickle themselves?
Can a robot park New Yorkers' cars? It's an open question, especially since the cars aren't very good at parking themselves.
Even controlling our own limbs is a difficult problem.
The always-insightful Deric Bownds applies his reasoning to the problem of learning to play the piano.
The relationship (or lack thereof) between change blindness and attention.
Still hungry for more science links? Visit this week's Tangled Bank.
dmunger | January 31, 2007When our dentist told us Jim and Nora needed braces, we just took them straight to the orthodontist and signed them up for treatments -- we didn't even think twice about it. On the other hand, their treatments haven't been especially dire -- neither child needed "headgear," for example. I know people who've had elaborate, painful gear, requiring horrific hand-cranking and years of dreaded visits to the orthodontist, beginning as early as the second grade. It does make you wonder: is it all worth it?
A new study suggests that it may not be. Researchers followed a group of children for 20 years…
dmunger | January 30, 2007
Publishers spending big bucks to try to stop the open-access publishing movement. Yes, these tactics are slimy, but are they not also a sign that open access is a real threat to commercial publishing?
Speaking of free science reporting, check out Encephalon at Sharp Brains.
Babel's Dawn describes ceremonial speech (based on my background in literary studies, I tend to call this "performative speech").
Is it always rational to think of humans as rational?
A calorie is a calorie, whether burned through exercise or saved through dieting.
Meanwhile, the search for the Holy Grail of dieting…
dmunger | January 30, 2007How much money do you really need? Nearly everyone, regardless of their wealth, responds with an amount higher than what they currently have. Many financial planners suggest that Americans need to save at least $2 million by retirement in order to maintain their lifestyles. Yet what if you die before you spend all that money? What would the point of all that scrimping and saving have been?
A new article in the New York Times suggests that most people can maintain their existing lifestyle while saving just a fraction of that amount -- $400,000 will do for a couple currently making $125,000 per…
dmunger | January 29, 2007
Are you smart or stupid? Take the test! Not scientific, but amusing nonetheless.
Another "interesting" application of IQ (Warning: photos of swastikas). Data is rather old here, but I'd be surprised if these correlations don't still hold up.
Fish may be more logical than the subjects of the previous link.
Cognitive Dissonance had a birthday. And I forgot to send a card. I'm exactly 10 years and three days younger than cognitive dissonance.
New book chronicles the rise of statistical measurement of Americans. Does Casual Fridays get a chapter?
Even if you're not an alcoholic, drinking too…
dmunger | January 29, 2007Nearly 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 in navigation. Even my favorite golf game has one. Such maps can be indispensable, but they also invite a question -- should the map rotate to align with the player's viewing angle, or should they remain at a constant orientation?
Aligning the map with the viewer's perspective makes it easier to find items, but constantly rotating the map might make it difficult for gamers to…
dmunger | January 29, 2007Suppose you're a granting agency, and you have $1 million to spend to help foster research in your area of interest. Would you be better off giving ten grants for $100,000 each, in hopes that one or more of the funded projects might produce results, or just announce a $1 million prize -- to be awarded after a researcher achieves the desired goals. Instead of gambling on whether the discovery can be made, you let the researchers do the gambling -- and you only have to pay if they produce the goods.
The Wall Street Journal's David Wessel discusses the growing trend of offering prizes instead of…
dmunger | January 28, 2007Here's the Cognitive Daily weekly podcast for January 28.
Topics:
Brains can tell the difference between metaphor and irony
Want to drive safely? Talking to passengers may be okay, but talking on the phone isn't
Don't forget that you can subscribe to the podcast using the special RSS feed:
http://scienceblogs.com/cognitivedaily/rss-podcasts.xml
To subscribe using iTunes, select Subscribe to Podcast from the Advanced menu, then paste or type in the URL.
To access the podcast directly, click on the links below:
Cognitive Daily's weekly podcast for January 28, 2007 (AAC version)
Cognitive…
dmunger | January 26, 2007Last week's Casual Fridays study was inspired partially by reports we see in the mainstream media so often, proclaiming that Americans are ignorant about the rest of the world. If the rest of the world really is better than Americans at geography, then maybe they can beat us even on our home turf. Our quiz compared non-Americans' knowledge of U.S. states to Americans' knowledge about the rest of the world (you can see the maps and answers here).
I randomly chose ten countries and U.S. states, then created a multiple-choice quiz where a map was displayed and five plausible choices were given…
dmunger | January 26, 2007As you may have noticed, we've been experimenting with a new posting format at CogDaily. Previously, we posted a "news" post every morning that included brief analysis of one news item followed by a set of "in other news" links to other news items from across the Web. But many readers complained that they were reading CogDaily using an RSS reader, and didn't like having to come to our site in order to see the second half of these posts.
For the past week, we've broken news posts in two, posting a "news" item every morning, and placing the "in other news" links in a separate post every…
dmunger | January 25, 2007Senses in the news:
This seems too good to be true:
But apparently it is true. See this paper and this blog post.
If you're lucky enough to have eyes, here's a good analysis of how all your visual inputs get put together into a single representation.
For robots, a sense of smell is important, too.
The next robotic challenge: door-to-door combat operations.
dmunger | January 25, 2007I'm currently reading Hugo Münsterberg's fascinating 1916 book, The Photoplay (I'm reading a paper copy, but the link takes you to the complete online text). It's one of the earliest serious works on film, which was unfortunately not well received at the time it was published due to the start of World War I and Münsterberg's strong German nationalism (he was a professor at Harvard at the time).
Anyway, I wanted to direct your attention to a couple descriptions of amazing research conducted with the extremely limited tools available at that time:
If a flash of light at one point is followed…
dmunger | January 25, 2007At the ScienceBlogging conference last weekend, speaker Hunt Willard brought up an interesting dilemma, discussed by ScienceBlogger Suzanne Franks (aka Zuska):
At some point, Willard said, cloning will be so straightforward we'll be able to clone a Neanderthal. He asked, "Can you really believe no one will want to do it? Just to see?" And then...what do we do when the "experiment" is over? With research dogs - we euthanize them at the end of experiments. With chimpanzees - at the end of experiments they are sent off to sanctuaries where they are well taken care of for life (and Willard said…
dmunger | January 24, 2007
However you spin it, handedness changes with aging.
How Sapir-Whorf may still have life (via Mind Hacks). But see this analysis of the same data set.
How labels help us learn.
How computers help writers.
How you can get a job like Greta's -- or Chad's.
How neurons communicate with each other.
How computers might someday communicate with neurons.
dmunger | January 24, 2007Many many studies have repeatedly shown the dangers of driving while using a cell phone. Yesterday, while discussing a new law in Britain imposing heavy penalties not only for driving using a handheld phone, but also while using phones with hands-free kits, commenter Jan claimed that talking to a passenger was less dangerous than talking on a phone. I replied that I hadn't seen a study demonstrating that talking with passengers was any different from talking on a phone, and Jan provided a link to one such study.
Greta and I have both read over the study, and while we can't say from these…
dmunger | January 24, 2007The New York Times has an article filled with some interesting anecdotes about the prevalence of magical thinking. Everyone, it seems, even college grads hoping to be admitted into graduate school, has a few superstitions.
Let's face it: magic is fun. At the University of Chicago, there was a superstition that stepping on the brass college seal embedded in the floor of Hutchinson Commons would cause students to take longer than four years to graduate. When I graduated, diploma in hand, I had a friend take my photo standing on the plaque. When I processed the picture, the bottom half was…
dmunger | January 23, 2007
Orac has an insightful post addressing concerns that Big Pharma won't develop non-patentable drugs.
Future worry: Big AI won't develop better robot nurses?
Current worry: Will Nintendo put Weight Watchers out of business?
Steven Pinker tackles consciousness.
Does the brain actually have a "resting mode"?
Is mental illness still a stigma? One answer.
Possible mechanism for the problem discussed this morning: Inability to drive well while talking.
Finally: Want to know what Greta and I were up to this weekend? More links than you'll ever manage to follow. Tip: start at the bottom.
dmunger | January 23, 2007As laws against driving with cell phones continue to go on the books around the world, Britain has upped the ante:
Drivers caught using a hand-held mobile or who do not have control of their vehicle while using a hands-free kit will be hit with a fine of 60 pounds.
They will also get three penalty points on their licence.
"Research shows that talking on a mobile phone while driving affects your concentration and ability to react to dangerous situations," said Transport Secretary Douglas Alexander.
The headline of the story implies that the biggest news is the bigger fine, but to me, the…
dmunger | January 23, 2007This seems like an interesting meme. I was tagged by Babel's Dawn, who asks the following:
What have you learned so far from visitors to your blog? To be aware of who I'm writing to: a very bright, sometimes expert audience -- though not always expert in the particular field I'm writing about. Also, that I'm a poor predictor of what will be interesting to my audience, so I'd better be doing my best no matter the topic.
If somebody offered to pay for a course (or more) for you, what would it be? Statistics. Definitely a gap in my knowledge there.
Are you satisfied with what you have achieved…
dmunger | January 22, 2007
NYT writer John Tierney discusses why women might want to be thinner than the optimal weight for attracting men.
Learning a second language impairs ability in your first language. A little bit, anyway. Apparently there is some truth to every ninth-grader's excuse for not doing his Spanish homework.
Does long-term use of narcotics for back pain lead to abuse? Is it effective? We don't really know.
Another kind of addiction?
Speaking of drugs, Jonah Lehrer examines a gaping hole in the drug-evaluation process.