dmunger | January 9, 2009Last week we asked readers to tell us under what circumstances they would be likely to use a public restroom reserved for the other gender. We've all been in the situation where there's a long line for one restroom and a very short or non-existent line for the other (although this tends to happen more for women's rooms, which lack urinals). If you're a woman, is it okay to use the men's room? If you're a man, is it okay to use the women's room? Should there even be separate restrooms based on gender?
We asked about the situation where there's a short line at the other gender's restroom and a…
dmunger | January 8, 2009As a young child, my family was poor and we had to go to a public clinic for dental work. Since we were being seen by dental students, often the process was painful and took much longer than it should have. It was a tremendous relief when my uncle opened a swanky dental practice with a lake view, and soothing '70s rock wafted out over the audio system. I'm pretty sure my uncle was a better dentist than the students who had been seeing me before, but it also seemed like just the environment in his office contributed to me feeling better when he had to do an awful procedure like filling a…
dmunger | January 7, 2009Every year about this time, we start thinking about an exciting television event: the Super Bowl. I'm excited because it's the biggest football game of the year. The rest of the family just likes to watch the commercials. No doubt, some of those commercials are hilarious, and there's often more conversation about the commercials than the game itself. Companies spend millions buying advertising time, and millions more developing commercials that will stand out from the pack on Super Bowl Sunday. Other than watching your favorite team lose, there's nothing more disappointing than seeing an old…
dmunger | January 5, 2009Baby sign language is all the rage these days. Upscale day-care centers and nanny services promote it as a better way of understanding what babies want. Babies have been known to reliably produce signs as young as 5.5 months, and studies have shown that they reliably produce signs significantly earlier than spoken words. As we've reported here, there is no evidence that teaching sign language delays spoken language development.
But is formal sign training effective? Some studies about baby sign language have been quite informal, with parents and caregivers inventing makeshift signs to "talk"…
dmunger | January 2, 2009Yesterday on our way back from a vacation in New York, we stopped to get coffee and use the bathroom. There was a long line at the women's room, and a much shorter line at the men's restroom. These were both one-seat restrooms with locks on the door. A man in line for the men's room gallantly suggested that Greta use the men's toilet. By the time I had purchased our coffee, the situation had reversed and there was no line for the women's room.
Would it be okay for me to use the women's facility? Or would it be rude? After all, I might surprise a woman later on when I emerge. Is it okay for…
dmunger | December 30, 2008[This entry was originally posted in April 2007]
The Beck effect is difficult to replicate online, because it involves testing reaction times. However, I think I've figured out a way to approximate the effect. This movie (Quicktime required) will show you how it works. Just follow the directions on the opening screen:
Now, which letter did you see first? Let's make this a poll:
If we manage to replicate the effect, there should be a bias in the results, which I'll explain below so everyone has a chance to try it out before learning the "answer."
In the 1960s, Jacob Beck found that when…
dmunger | December 29, 2008[This article was originally posted in February, 2007]
The setting was an integrated suburban middle school: nearly evenly divided between black and white students. As is the case in many schools, white students outperformed black students both in grades and test scores. But how much of this difference is attributable to real differences in ability? After all, black kids grow up "knowing" that white kids do better in school. Perhaps this was just an example of kids living down to expectations.
At every performance level, this chart (adjusted for covariates) shows that black students who…
dmunger | December 26, 2008[Originally posted in December, 2006]
So it's December 22, and you are one of the few people who hasn't already bagged out of work to get ready for the holidays. You've been absolutely deluged -- swamped with work -- the entire month of December. You've hardly had time to think about Christmas, let alone shop. But now, with the holiday just a couple short days away, you're faced with the shocking truth. You'll be attending three different Christmas parties (or whatever alternative you prefer). Gifts will be exchanged. What's an overworked procrastinator to do? Would gift certificates be…
dmunger | December 24, 2008There's a fair bit of evidence that playing games can enhance your cognitive ability and prevent decline as we age. Or at least that's the excuse I use when I take a few minutes off during the course of the workday to play a game or two. Here are some of my current favorites:
Str8ts. This game confused me at first, but once I got the hang of it, I was an addict. Follow the walkthrough to get an idea of how it's played, then play the daily puzzle. Tip: You can type as many numbers as you want into each cell, then eliminate possibilities until you figure out the answer.
Kakuro. I play the…
dmunger | December 23, 2008Two summers ago in Paris, I was astounded at the volume of traffic that somehow managed to negotiate the traffic circle at the Arc de Triomphe without incident. Here's the (poor quality) video I made to document traffic flow there:
I learned to drive in my 20s in New York City. Like Paris, New York has a traffic rhythm all its own, where lane markings are mere suggestions. In New York, parking is tolerated nearly anywhere, as long as traffic isn't unduly impeded. I've seen people double-parked, triple-parked, parked on corners, on sidewalks, you name it.
Driving into Manhattan several times…
dmunger | December 19, 2008Last week's Casual Fridays study was inspired by my (incorrect) observation that the latest beta version of Firefox always displays tabs. (Actually, while it defaults to that setting, it's possible to disable it.)
When I pointed this out on Twitter, the reaction was one of astonished disbelief that I might ever not want to be viewing multiple tabs. Am I the only person left who doesn't always use tabs? And who uses the most tabs? We asked readers how many tabs they currently had open, as well as several other questions about their internet habits and opinions.
As it turns out, I'm in a…
dmunger | December 18, 2008[This is our synchroblogging post in honor of PLoS ONE's second birthday. Why not write your own?]
Ever wonder whether it's better to study all night before a big exam, or to get a good night's sleep, but maybe not have a chance to go over all the material? We know that memory consolidation can occur in sleep, but we also know that those extra hours studying can do some good. And then there's the issue of false memories: who hasn't had the experience of being completely convinced their test answer is correct, only to learn that it's 100 percent wrong?
Inducing false memories is surprisingly…
dmunger | December 17, 2008Earlier today we asked readers to imagine an angry face. Then, in a surprise poll, we asked what gender the face was. So far our results match those of a study led by D. Vaughn Becker: over three-fourths of the responses were "male."
In the published study, there was no difference in the response based the respondent's gender. Both men and women are much more likely to think of a male "angry" face than a female one.
If we'd asked you to picture a happy face instead of an angry face, the results would switch almost as dramatically in the opposite direction: Most people say happy faces are…
dmunger | December 17, 2008Think about an angry face. Make a picture of it in your mind. Then, answer the poll below.
I'll add in a bit of extra space here so you don't see the poll before you picture an angry face.
Imagine an angry face. What gender is it? ( polls)
Thanks! We'll have more discussion about this poll, along with some exciting research, later today.
Update: See the post about the research behind this poll here.
dmunger | December 15, 2008When I was 12 years old, I sometimes got to ride the train from Seattle to my aunt's house in Portland. Staring at the countryside flashing past the train window, it seemed to me that the landscape was rotating in a giant circle: Nearby objects flashed past the train as expected -- they appeared to move the opposite way the train was going. But the mountains in the distance seemed to be moving forward, faster than the train. It was as if the land next to us was just a vast turntable, rotating rapidly as we stayed in the same place. This video (not my own) captures some of the effect:
I knew…
dmunger | December 12, 2008A few days ago after downloading the latest beta version of the FireFox web browser, I posted what I thought was an innocuous complaint on Twitter: The software assumes you will always have multiple web pages open. Even if you're only reading one web page, the browser puts it in a tab, thus taking up valuable screen real estate.
Immediately I started getting replies: "how can you work with just one tab? I've got 37 open now!" "Does anyone not use tabs anymore?" Actually, it's not that I never use tabs, it's that sometimes I do and sometimes I don't. But perhaps I'm the only one.
But still, it…
dmunger | December 11, 2008Yesterday's post showed that our memory for objects depends on the background information available when we first see the object: If you see a toy in a room, you remember it better later if you see it again in the room. Being in the same position in a blank picture of the room doesn't help.
So what about the scene is helping us remember the object? It could be things in the immediate area of the object: are we remembering the precise object/background relationship? In our example, maybe we're remembering exactly how the propeller and the gear interact with the background:
In 2003,…
dmunger | December 11, 2008PLoS ONE turns two this month, and to celebrate, they're partnering with ResearchBlogging.org to make history on December 18.
On that day, we're asking bloggers to write about one of the thousands of articles that have appeared on PLoS ONE in the past two years, in a synchroblogging event of epic proportions. It might just be the biggest day ever for blogging about peer-reviewed research. Want to participate? Visit the PloS ONE blog for more info. I've also reposted their instructions below.
PLoS ONE turns two this December. For our community celebration we're going to run our second…
dmunger | December 10, 2008Change blindness is a truly remarkable phenomenon. There are so many ways that the human perceptual system can be tricked into missing a change that appears right before our eyes, that it's sometimes astonishing that we aren't constantly running into walls or misplacing the basics of life -- our car keys, wallet, our what were were planning on eating for dinner. If you've never seen a demonstration of change-blindness, I'd suggest checking out some of the posts we've written about it before (For example, here, here, and here).
So why don't we notice these sorts of changes? This video, based…
dmunger | December 9, 2008
The New York Times has an interesting article about the latest international math/science testing. American kids actually fared pretty well, behind just a few other countries. More focused testing on individual states puts Massachusetts kids behind only Taiwan and Singapore.
Encephalon is up at Living the Scientific Life
Skills for Healthy Living blog reports that Pain intensity does not correlate with life satisfaction in people with long-term pain
And, just in time for your office holiday party, BPS Research Digest reports on How to name-drop
Inspired by a typo on CogDaily, CogLangLab…