Mssv

A phenomenon well-known by psychologists, and pretty much everyone else, is called ‘tip of the tongue’, and it’s described in this American Scientist article:
When we have something to say, we first retrieve the correct words from memory, then execute the steps for producing the word. When these cognitive processes don’t mesh smoothly, conversation stops.
Suppose you [...]

One of the many sad results of Perplex City being put ‘on hold’ is that I can’t explore the effect of cognitive enhancement on society. As a former neuroscientist who studied experimental psychology at university, I always enjoyed writing about my pet fictional company, Cognivia, and its range of cognitive enhancements including Ceretin (wide-spectrum enhancement), [...]

There’s a fascinating series of articles at the New York Times Magazine this week about charitable giving. While many of the articles tend to cover the same ground (e.g. the move towards measuring the effectiveness of donations) there are some real gems there:
Consider Mr. Improvident, who is just like us except that he is not [...]

Spotted this wonderful, and very accurate, ‘equation’ by Daniel Kahneman:
The Secret of Regression to Mediocrity
Success = Some Talent + Luck
Great Success = Some Talent + A Lot of Luck
The term ‘regression to mediocrity’ (also known as ‘regression to the mean’) was first coined by Francis Galton in 1886. Galton showed that, on average, the children [...]

Some utter fool has written an article in the Times (part one, part two) on the failure of psychology. My views are reflected quite accurately in this Metafilter thread which I contributed to.
Psychology is alive and well, and if you want to attack the strawman of psychoanalysis and outdated views of early 20th century psychology, [...]

They just can’t help it – an article about the differences between the male and female brain by my old university psychology supervisor, Prof. Simon Baron-Cohen. Interesting and controversial stuff; I saw a lecture that he gave about this topic a few months ago (not via Metafilter – I read it in the Guardian myself [...]

The Third Wave – in 1968, a schoolteacher conducted an experiment to find out how easily ‘normal American students’ could fall into patterns of behaviour as seen in Nazi Germany. The results were quite astonishing and unexpected, and well worth reading (via Metafilter).

One of the advantages of being a university student is that there are ample opportunities to be a psychology experiment test subject. If you’re ever bored and could do with a bit of cash, it’s well worth checking out if there are any psychology researchers looking for test subjects. Usually you’ll end up sitting in [...]

Once again, it’s the wonderful time of year when the BBC’s Reith Lectures are being presented. I’ve followed the Reith Lectures on my weblog for quite a few years now, so when I discovered that this year’s lecturer is none other than my old San Diego research supervisor, Prof. Vilanyanur Ramachandran, I was pretty damn [...]

It’s amazing how suggestible the human mind is. Well, not quite amazing, but still impressive. I’ve just been over at a friend’s who’s a fan of psychological magic tricks, and he managed to successfully predict two different cards chosen by myself and another person. When I say ‘predict’, of course what really happened was that [...]