Monthly Archives: May 2009
You Are Not Your Brain: A Video by Philosopher Alva Noe
Alva Noe , professor of Philosophy at UC Berkeley, visits Google’s San Francisco, CA office to discuss his book, Out of Our Heads: Why You Are Not Your Brain, and Other Lessons from the Biology of Consciousness. Noe contends that consciousness … Continue reading
Filed under Videos
The Power of Sorry
The Child Psychology Research Blog is posting a series of reports on research presented at the Annual Convention of the Association for Psychological Science. The latest post, highly recommended, is about the effects of apologies on children’s emotions. The post describes … Continue reading
Filed under About Perception, About Research
The Movies Made Me Smoke It
While media research may still fall short of identifying solid causal links between movies and behavior, it’s getting much better at identifying how we could be influenced by what’s on the screen. Take smoking, for example; as a single, identifiable … Continue reading
Filed under About Research
Are We Born Believers or Cultural Receivers? A Discussion with Author and Psychologist Bruce Hood
Few topics in psychology are gaining more momentum than the origin of religious beliefs. Questions of whether we’re born with neural apparatus that predisposes us to belief, or whether we learn to becomes believers, or some combination of both, are on the minds … Continue reading
Filed under Interviews
What Enemas and Demonic Possession Have to Do with Developing False Beliefs
If there’s anything that cognitive psychology studies have made clear over the years, it’s that humans can be exceptionally gullible. With a little push, we’re prone to developing false beliefs not only about others, but about ourselves with equal prowess — and the … Continue reading
Filed under About Belief, About Research
Expertise and Problem Solving, General or Specialized?
One of the interesting ongoing debates in the expertise literature is whether general or specialized problem-solving strategies are more effective. It’s an important question with implications for how skills are taught — most importantly, thinking. General problem-solving strategies are context-independent. For example, … Continue reading
Filed under About Research
Fallacy of Conjunction, What’s Your Paranormal Function?
You’re in an airport waiting for your plane to board and decide to buy a magazine. The price, with tax, is $4.59. Then you decide you could really use a frozen yogurt but aren’t sure you have enough time, so … Continue reading
Filed under About Research
David DiSalvo is a science, technology and culture writer whose work appears in Scientific American Mind, Psychology Today and a variety of other places.
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