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This is a guest post by Laura Younger, one of Greta's top student writers for Spring 2007. Take a look at these static images from a video clip. Can you tell what the person is doing? It might be hard to make it out from these still pictures, but when you see the same thing in motion it becomes…

A continuation of our "greatest hits" from past Cognitive Daily postings: [originally posted on September 27, 2005] All this talk about stereotypes can get you thinking. Perhaps some stereotypes reflect actual differences. Take color vision, for example: men often refer to themselves as "color-…

This is a guest post by Daniel Griffin, one of Greta's top student writers from Spring of 2007. Does anything seem stick out about this sentence? I'm sure that if I told you to keep looking for yellow highlighted words, you would not have much trouble finding them in these first few sentences. You…

A continuation of our "greatest hits" from past Cognitive Daily postings: [originally posted on July 11, 2005] There's something about kids and dogs. The phrase "A boy and his dog" brings up quite a range of images: from the sweetness of Norman Rockwell to what sounds like a truly bizarre movie…

This is a guest post by Christy Tucker, one of Greta's top student writers from Spring of 2007. Take a look at the following paintings. How alike are they? How can you tell--which clues help you determine similarity? Now, which of these girls are related? If only two of these young girls are…

A continuation of our "greatest hits" from past Cognitive Daily postings: [originally posted on December 14, 2005] IQ has been the subject of hundreds, if not thousands of research studies. Scholars have studied the link between IQ and race, gender, socioeconomic status, even music. Discussions…

This is a guest post by Jonathan Leathers, one of Greta's top student writers for Spring 2007. Take a look at this word: MONDAY What color do you see? Red? Blue? While you may see nothing unusual, some people report being able to perceive colors associated with different days of the week when…

This is a guest post by Martina Mustroph, one of Greta's top student writers for Spring 2007 Rats are often useful models for understanding human behavior,. Testing drugs on rats before testing them on humans is particularly enticing because it is relatively free of ethical concerns (relative to…

[originally posted on February 2, 2006] In connection to Monday's posting, Other-race faces: Why do they seem different?, I thought readers would be interested in a post from early last year concerning implicit attitudes on race. The link to the original post is above if you would like to see…

This is a guest post by Rivka Ihejirika, one of Greta's top student writers for Spring 2007 Do you find it harder to recognize the face of someone from a race other than your own? Does it take you longer to recall the face of someone from an unfamiliar race? Some researchers believe that we are…

Yesterday was the summer solstice, and the days are getting shorter; but before you go out and enjoy the sun this weekend: Is sunshine good for you? In other news: AMA weighs in on gaming and internet addiction Coffee 'could prevent eye tremor' Brain's inertial navigation system pinpointed What's…

This is a guest post by Laura Younger, one of Greta's top student writers from Spring 2007 Everyone has heard of the concept of reinforcement. You reinforce your child with dessert after finishing his or her vegetables; you praise your dog with ear scratches for not barking at the mailman; or you…

[originally posted on April 20, 2006] If you're older than about 20, you'll probably recognize the image to the left from an anti-drug campaign from the 1980s. The image was supposed to represent the effects of drugs on the human brain. While the effectiveness of the campaign is debatable, the fact…

This is a guest post by David Kerns, one of Greta's top student writers for Spring 2007. As movie special effects technology improves, more and more live-action shots are being replaced with computer animation. Harry Potter flies across the Quidditch field; Spider-Man swings from web to web…

This is a guest post by Martina Mustroph, one of Greta's top student writers for Spring 2007. When you're typing, your senses of touch, hearing, and sight align. You feel, see, and hear your fingers touch the keyboard. Now imagine that you are outdoors and you feel a drop of water hit your hand. If…

"What was your 6th birthday party like? "If you successfully retrieved that memory, you may now be ever so slightly less able to remember your other childhood birthdays. A variety of behavioral evidence has shown that such "retrieval induced forgetting" of strongly competing memories is fundamental…

This is a guest post by Suzie Eckl, one of Greta's top student writers for Spring 2007 Forget color television. Before we had color, we had black and white. Before we had movies, we had photographs. And before photographs we had... Engravings? Prior to August 19, 1839, the date Daguerre and…

This is a guest post by Daniel Griffin, one of Greta's top student writers for Spring 2007 How well do you think you can navigate through these woods? How about when your field of view is significantly reduced? When external information such as sight is decreased, our ability to make our way…

This is a guest post by Aaron Couch, one of Greta's top student writers for Spring 2007 When looking out a window, or watching a movie in a theater, the image you see is typically presented as right-side-up. Let's say though, that you're lying on your side in bed and looking out a window at your…

Hello Cognitive Daily readers! As you may have already read, I have been hired by Dave and Greta as the Cognitive Daily summer intern while they're away on vacation for the next couple of months, so I thought I'd give a brief introduction. My name is Aaron Couch and I am a junior student at…