Commentary invited by editors of Scientific American Mind
Imagine that you are a bouncer, checking IDs outside a popular bar in a college town. It is somewhat dark outside the door, there are many distractions: loud music is playing and your job requires you to also keep an eye on the crowd for trouble.
One of the tragedies of aging is the slow but steady decline in memory. Phone numbers slipping your mind? Forgetting crucial items on your grocery list?
While we can all agree coincidences have fascinated scholars and lay people alike, what they mean divides us into one of two camps: skeptics or believers.
Are four treats better than two? Not if you're a crow picking a favorite snack. Crows and ravens hold off on gobbling a tidbit when they can see a better one coming after a short wait.
Adapted from When Depression Hurts Your Relationship: How To Regain Intimacy and Reconnect with Your Partner When You’re Depressed. Copyright 2014 Shannon Kolakowski.
For the first time ever, neuroscientists have completed a comprehensive roadmap of the top-trafficked communication highways in the human brain.
Glorious, refreshing sleep is eluding the majority of Americans. According to the National Sleep Foundation’s2013 International Bedroom Poll 56 percent of people between the ages of 25 and 55 get an insufficient amount of sleep on workdays.
Though you may not know it, when you watch the Super Bowl on Sundayespecially if you actually watch the game and not just the commercials you’ll likely be engaging in a lot of what psychological scientists call counterfactual thinking: thoughts about “what might have been,” “at least,” and “if only.” Research on counterfactual thought explains [...]
Reader, be proud. Youre a perceptual expert. As you read, your eyes alternately focus and move along each line of text in a seamless sequence honed over years of practice.
Chimpanzees have a lot to gain from climbing the social ladder. It now appears that lower-ranking male chimps strengthen bonds with their friends in high places by alerting them to some good eats.
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