Dave Munger
dmunger
Posts by this author
I'm about to head out of town for three weeks. You may have noticed posting getting lighter the last couple weeks as I attempted to tie up loose ends before the trip. Posting will be getting even lighter for the next three weeks as I head west to visit family. Then, a week from now, Nora and I will…
Several recent large-scale studies have confirmed a curious finding: Asians are much more likely to have "perfect pitch" than non-Asians. Perfect pitch, more properly called "Absolute pitch," is an extremely rare phenomenon, but it's several times more likely to occur in Asians than in others.…
A number of studies have found that older adults aren't as good at certain visual tasks compared to younger adults. Mental rotation, for example, is both slower and less accurate. But other studies have found that for certain types of mental rotation, older adults do just as well as younger adults…
When we're in a crowded space, making visual judgments becomes more difficult. But it doesn't take much to trigger a crowding effect. Clicking on the picture below will take you to a quick movie (QuickTime required) that should demonstrate the effect. Focus on the cross to the left, then start the…
Bora's hosting the first-ever edition of a new history of science carnival, "The Giant's Shoulders," which promises to focus attention on great research from years past, once a month.
All participants review a journal article or other report of science from their field of expertise. The catch is…
Imagine yourself in a room surrounded by eleven objects arranged in a circle. You memorize the position of the objects, then you close your eyes, and rotate a third of the way around (120°). Keeping your eyes closed, can you point to the object that was behind you before? Most people can do this…
In 2005, E. Ashby Plant and B. Michelle Peruche tested 48 Florida police officers and found that they were initially more likely to shoot unarmed Black "suspects" in a crime-fighting simulation than White people holding similar objects. Interestingly, however, as the test went on, the officers…
Last year when the family was in Europe I snapped this photo of Jim looking at a triptych of three blank canvases:
The accompanying blog post generated heated discussion about whether the work depicted in the photo was "art" (the discussion became so heated that I decided to close the comments…
Last year we discussed a great deal of research about the gender disparity in math and science. Even while women are more successful overall in school than men, in certain fields there is a very large deficit in the number of women participating. We mentioned one explanation in particular:
The male…
Have you ever seen Singin' in the Rain? One of the movie's most hilarious moments is when the beautiful silent movie star Lina Lamont is asked to start making "talking pictures." As soon as this gorgeous screen siren opens her mouth, the illusion of her beauty is shattered: her squeaky voice…
In our discussions of violence associated with video game play, we've frequently noted that there appear to be different effects depending on the type of video game. Some games are more violent than others, and some games reward violence while others discourage it. All this has an impact in terms…
This is just a brief note to let our loyal Casual Friday readers know that we'll be going on a break for the summer. We should be able to maintain a semi-reasonable pace with the regular Cognitive Daily posts, but with all of our travel, it generally becomes a logistical nightmare to keep up with…
My high school experience, like that of nearly everyone who attended my school, was a perplexing one. It seemed there were only a few "popular" people -- those that everyone knew and liked -- and wanted to be like. Everyone else was much like me: they struggled to become more popular, with little…
We're still working hard on getting the next version of ResearchBlogging.org ready to go. I know this is taking a long time, but since we have a (semi) working system right now, we really want to get this right. It shouldn't be too much longer. A few weeks ago we settled on a new list of major…
Do you multitask? I'm not talking about literally doing two things at once, like emailing while talking on the phone, or playing the trombone while washing the dishes. I'm talking about the more common phenomenon of starting one project before you're finished with another. For example, after I read…
One of the things that motivated Nora and me to conduct the Casual Friday nuts study was our intense ambivalence toward the Brazil nut. It's so much bigger than the other nuts that it tends to dominate any mixture, even when present in small quantities. And, to our palate, it just doesn't taste…
Last week we asked our readers what their favorite types of mixed nuts were. Does the mixture that comes in the can actually approximate real-world preferences, or are the nut-packagers just giving us the cheapest nuts, with no allowances for our actual likes and dislikes?
We received over 600…
One of the first steps to learning a language is figuring out where one word ends and the next one begins. Since fluent speakers don't generally pause between words, it can be a daunting task. We've discussed one of the ways people do it in this post -- they focus in on consonant sounds. Other…
What makes something look glossy? At first, it doesn't seem like a difficult question -- it's something smooth and reflective. But if you were to attempt to draw something that looked glossy, how would you to it? Now, the problem suddenly gets a lot more difficult. Taking a look at a photo of a…
Listen to this short audio clip:
The clip plays two notes that are two full octaves apart. That's a greater range than many people can produce vocally. It should be easy for anyone to tell the difference between these two notes, even when heard in isolation, right?
Not necessarily.
A team led by…
Last weekend Nora and I went on a hike in the Smoky Mountains. Whenever we go hiking, we make trail mix -- usually just cashews and raisins. This time, however, we had some mixed nuts left over from a party so we decided to use those instead.
But there's a problem with mixed nuts: invariably there…
Boundary extension -- misremembering the boundaries of a scene as wider than they really are -- has been observed in adults as old as 84 and children as young as 6. But for kids much younger than 6, the phenomenon becomes quite difficult to study. How do you ask a 6-month-old whether the picture…
Take a look at these three pictures. Can you tell which is a human, which is a cat, and which is a pigeon?
How about these three pictures? A little easier?
It would be even easier, of course, if the pictures were in motion, like in this movie (QuickTime required). (Update: Nikolaus Troje has…
A reader recently emailed to ask us if there's been any research about whether poor working conditions such as a noisy or overheated office affect motivation and efficiency. Wouldn't it be great if you could document to your employer that the guy in the next cubicle's constant gabbing on the phone…
This article was originally posted on March 27, 2007
When we see a familiar face, or even a photo of a favorite car or pet, we're often flooded with memories from our past. Sometimes just seeing a person or object that's similar to the ones in our memory will trigger recollections we never knew we…
Not long ago we discussed work led by Deena Skolnick Weisberg showing that most people are more impressed by neuroscience explanations of psychological phenomena than plain-old psychology explanations. Talking about brains, it seems, is more convincing than simply talking about behavior, even when…
Take a look at the short movie I've linked below (Click on the picture to play. QuickTime required). The movie shows a virtual gripping device (two red balls) lifting rectangular objects and placing them on a conveyor belt. Do you notice anything unusual happening as the objects are being moved…
The link below will take you to a short movie (QuickTime Required). You'll see a series of seven easy addition problems, which will flash by at the rate of one every two seconds. Your job is to solve the problems as quickly as possible (ideally, you should say the answers out loud).
Click to watch…
A few weeks ago, Greta got a new iPod. I was, naturally, interested to see how it worked since it was supposed to be the latest technology, but Greta would hardly let me touch it: "It's mine, and I want to learn how to use it before you do," she told me.
This was surprising to me, since I…
Inspired by this post, we've decided to devote a week to the analysis of studies from the history of psychology.
Gestalt theory hit the psychology world by storm in the 1920s, and the Gestalt school's unquestioned leader (though probably not the originator of the concept) was Max Wertheimer. While…