Research
terrasig | December 2, 2008[Point of clarification: I was delighted to use this post to congratulate my friend and blogging colleague, Dr Chris Patil, on his contributions to this paper from the laboratory of Dr Judith Campisi discussed below. As the formal press release notes, "[c]o-authoring the paper with Campisi were Jean-Philippe Coppé and Christopher Patil, members of Campisi's research group in Berkeley Lab's Life Sciences Division, Joshua Goldstein, now with the Novartis Research Foundation; Francis Rodier and Denise Muñoz of the Buck Institute; and Peter Nelson and Yu Sun from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer…
dmunger | November 26, 2008(This entry was originally posted in May, 2006)
We've discussed implicit attitudes on Cognitive Daily before, but never in the context of food. The standard implicit attitude task asks you to identify items belonging to two different categories. Consider the following lists. Use your mouse to click on items which are either pleasant or related to Genetically Modified foods (GM foods). (Clicking won't actually do anything, it's just a way of self-monitoring your progress)
Horrible
Good
Transgenic
Nasty
Crops
Wonderful
dislike
GE livestock
Now with this next list, do the same task, only click…
dmunger | November 24, 2008Boundary extension is a phenomenon we've discussed a lot on Cognitive Daily. It's typically described as a memory error: We remember scenes as having bigger boundaries than what we originally saw. Take a look at these two pictures of Jim:
If you only saw picture A by itself, then later you'd remember seeing a picture that looks more like picture B. If you look at them side-by-side, it's easy to see that picture A is cropped closer than picture B, but if you see the pictures separately, then it's likely you'll misremember the first picture has having broader boundaries than it really has.…
grrlscientist | November 23, 2008tags: Smithsonian, National Museum of Natural History, outreach, education, science, streaming video
This streaming video is the last part of a four-part series by the Smithsonian Institute. It features outreach programs where kids especially can learn about science by participating in ongoing research at the National Museum of Natural History, aka, the Smithsonian. [2:17].
grrlscientist | November 22, 2008tags: Smithsonian, National Museum of Natural History, fieldwork, education, science, streaming video
This streaming video is the third of a four-part series by the Smithsonian Institute. It features fieldwork that scientists engage in by trekking through the tropical rainforests and sending probes to the bottom of the sea at the National Museum of Natural History, aka, the Smithsonian. [2:31].
grrlscientist | November 21, 2008tags: Smithsonian, National Museum of Natural History, research, science, streaming video
This streaming video is part one of a four-part series by the Smithsonian Institute. It features some of the scientists who work behind the scenes at the National Museum of Natural History, aka, the Smithsonian. In this video, you'll catch a glimpse of some of my colleagues from when I was a postdoc [2:32].
grrlscientist | November 20, 2008tags: Smithsonian, National Museum of Natural History, collections, education, science, streaming video
This streaming video is the second of a four-part series by the Smithsonian Institute. It features the extensive collections that that are archived at the National Museum of Natural History, aka, the Smithsonian. [2:34].
dmunger | November 19, 2008A Necker cube is bi-stable figure, meaning that it can be perceived as two different three-dimensional objects, depending on how you look at it:
Cube A is ambiguous -- the true Necker cube. Cube B and cube C show the two ways you can perceive the Necker cube: either the bottom of the cube is in front, or the top is in front. What's interesting about figures such as the Necker cube is that once you're aware of its bi-stable nature, it's impossible to see it only one way. Don't believe me? Then take this challenge. Play the movie below (it lasts for two minutes). The figure will flash every…
terrasig | November 18, 2008DrDrA at BlueLabCoats has returned with an outstanding post, entitled, "I want you to hear me, I don't care what you see...," that she wrote out longhand during her recent travels:
In my absence I picked up a whiff of a lot of chatter about what women scientists wear to work... or talk/write about wearing .... going on in the blogosphere. . .
You see- the struggle I'm in daily in my own life and career is not about appearances, and it is not about symbolism or femininity- and it is not about who I am as a person, my likes and dislikes etc. It is a struggle to be heard and taken seriously…
dmunger | November 17, 2008One of things I was taught over and over again when I was in education school was the importance of getting parents involved in kids' learning. If you get the parents on your side, my professors insisted, then you're going to be much more able to get through to the students. I didn't last long enough as a teacher to see how well this advice worked, but as a parent, I've certainly experienced the process from the other end. From an early age, our kids were given "homework" that they couldn't possibly do without the help of their parents.
Sometimes it seemed as if these assignments were really…
dmunger | November 13, 2008Remember this video?
A few weeks ago we used it to demonstrate that facial expressions can disrupt the perceptual system in fundamental ways. Actually, because we could only show a few short clips, we weren't able to duplicate the research results found by John Eastwood, Daniel Smilek, and Philip Merikle. But in their, more comprehensive study, although viewers were instructed only to count "upturned arcs" or "downturned arcs," when those arcs formed "faces" with negative expressions, people counted the arcs slower and less accurately.
But how exactly do facial expressions disrupt the…
dmunger | November 12, 2008When Jim and Nora were toddlers, they were huge fans of everything Disney. Here they're wearing their Disney pajamas as they play next to their Seven Dwarves figurines, underneath their TV, which was frequently used to watch Disney videos. We even took them to Disney World, where they had an absolute blast, but turned out to be afraid of life-sized Disney characters (but that's a story for another day).
While we didn't let them watch Disney movies whenever they wanted, we did allow it once or twice a week, and even built up a large collection of videos, which we still use to entertain younger…
dmunger | November 11, 2008Philosophers have wondered for centuries whether someone who was blind from birth would "see" the world in the same way as people with normal vision. After all, there's much more to perceiving the world than properly functioning eyes. Think of it: otherwise all you'd need to do is strap a camcorder to a car and you'd never have to learn how to drive!
But there are surprisingly few cases of people who were born completely blind and then had their sight restored after many years of blindness. If a patient can be cured, it's usually done quite early in life. But a few cases have emerged in…
dmunger | November 5, 2008I play soccer every week with an ever-changing group of people. We're all busy, and people get injured or lose interest, so every week the crowd is slightly different; it often feels like we need to re-acquaint ourselves before every game. The easiest way to do this is during warm-ups when small groups kick the ball around in a circle or take practice shots on goal.
If you arrive a little late, you might have to insinuate yourself into one of the groups by strolling up and hoping someone passes you the ball. Typically this is pretty easy, but if the others are engaged in conversation, they…
dmunger | November 3, 2008Take a look at this quick movie. You'll be shown a "ready" screen, followed by a quick flash of eight letters arranged in a circle. Your job is to spot either a "Z" or a "K" in that circle of letters, while ignoring other letters appearing outside of the circle.
You'll see two different circles of letters in the movie. Each circle will either contain a Z or a K. Again, ignore the letters appearing outside of the circle. Go ahead, give it a shot.
Just watch the video once! What order did you see the Z and the K in? Let's make this a poll.
What letters did you see? ( surveys)
I don't…
dmunger | October 30, 2008Carmen Miranda is probably best-known today as the former spokesperson for Chiquita bananas, but she was equally famous -- and outrageous -- as an actress, singer, and dancer in the 1940s and 1950s.
Cognitive dissonance is a psychological phenomenon that occurs when people's actions contradict strongly-held beliefs. It's such a distasteful feeling that people will often invent convoluted justifications to account for their actions. For example, if a white employer who believes herself not to be a racist decides not to hire an African American job applicant, she might justify her decision by…
dmunger | October 27, 2008When Jimmy was around 18 months old, Greta and I were both in graduate school. I attended classes at night and Greta taught and worked in the lab during the day. In the late afternoon I'd drive into the city with Jimmy in the car seat, and we'd swap -- she'd drive back home and I'd go to class, taking the train back home when I was done.
At this point, Greta was extremely pregnant with Nora. She was exhausted at the end of her workday, but Jimmy had usually taken a nap in the car, so he was raring to go. All Greta wanted to do was lie down and take a rest, and fortunately, there was one way…
dmunger | October 22, 2008Nora was an excellent talker, starting at a very young age, but that didn't mean that she couldn't express herself in other ways. Here, for example, she points to a the item she wants. It's entirely possible that she didn't yet know the word "stick," but she was still quite able to express her desire.
But what happens if a child is particularly successful at expressing her needs using gestures? Does development of spoken language suffer? One approach to this problem is to look language development in cultures that tend to use more gestures. Many studies have confirmed the "stereotype" that…
dmunger | October 20, 2008You're given $15. Which of these bets would you gamble your $15 on?
An 80 percent chance of winning $18.75
A 40 percent chance of winning $37.50
A 20 percent chance of winning $75
A 5 percent chance of $300
Or would you just keep the original $15?
The answer, it turns out, depends on your emotional state -- and your gender. We've discussed before how emotion can affect risk-taking: Fearful people, for example, tend to be less willing to take risks, while angry people seem more willing to. But what if the same emotion led to different risk reactions in different people?
It might actually…
dmunger | October 16, 2008Ben and Bernice Finn have been married for 60 years. And they still remember their first date.
"I was very nervous," Ben said. "She was so pretty."
"I remember that day very well," Bernice said. "And no, you weren't pretty."
But when the couples all went out that night, there was a chill in the air.
"And I took your arm," Bernice said.
"I was thrilled by that," Ben said.
"And the reason I took your arm is, you seemed nervous. And I wanted to make you more comfortable."
It's a heartwarming story, and I encourage you to listen to the whole thing. Don't worry, we'll wait for you. When you get…