For questions focusing on the interaction of many internal mental processes. If your question involves only one of memory, attention, language, decision-making, or perception then use the associated specialized tag instead of cognitive-psychology.
7
votes
1answer
65 views
How repeatable are cognitive science findings within the same individual?
Thanks to this website, I've seen a number of papers and scholarly articles that deal with cognition. I'm interested in how repeatable the findings are that are discovered as a result of experiments.
...
4
votes
1answer
57 views
Are there professional cognitive science test subjects?
I'm interested in how cognitive science experiments are designed and executed. Up until now, all of the papers I've seen dealing with cognition use availability of test subjects as one of the major ...
13
votes
3answers
889 views
Why do you sometimes write down one word while actually intending to write another?
I've caught myself writing (typing) "possible" instead of "possibly" a few times over the past few days, while I do intend to write "possibly". Only upon rereading the sentence I notice my mistake.
...
6
votes
0answers
123 views
Is there psychoactive music?
Listen to this music for X minutes to observe Y result. Is there something like that that has been demonstrated to work for general public?
The only example of an experiment that is similar that ...
4
votes
1answer
75 views
Psychological research on memorability of passwords?
There are lots of ad-hoc rules that people are happy to propose about passwords, such as:
Pick a phrase you can remember easily, and then use the initial letters.
A random short sequence of letters, ...
4
votes
1answer
62 views
A psychological theory that explains why people remember only the outcome?
I've read somewhere about a psychological theory that people often remember the end results or the outcome of a certain situation/discussion/conversation/etc, but not the details of it.
In other ...
9
votes
1answer
145 views
Are intelligence scores correlated with detection of second stimulus in an Attentional Blink test?
Definitions
Attentional Blink: An attentional blink is a phenomenon where when presented with rapid visual stimuli if you are asked to track two particular stimuli you will fail to notice the second ...
8
votes
1answer
90 views
Could Fitts Law be used to measure difficulty in platform genre games?
I've been learning about Fitts' law and am wondering if it's applicable to measuring the difficulty of platform type games where the challenge is to hit the platforms?
If so, this could be used to ...
2
votes
0answers
67 views
Does the person's walking say anything about the person's cognition?
This afternoon I've been observing people at a local park and came up with some observations that lead me to this question:
Can the person's gait (manner of walking) say something about the person's ...
6
votes
1answer
148 views
How do people visually recognize their own reflection?
I'm interested in how the brain processes and recognizes the image of the person's own face.
A bit of background:
A while ago I've developed an overlay-camera like app for iPhone that allows me to ...
4
votes
1answer
150 views
Closure, an actual psychology term relating to filling in information?
I'm currently reading a book called "Understand Comics" and a term has come up called closure. I've understood this concept before and the book describes closure as the process the brain goes through ...
18
votes
1answer
934 views
What makes people easily subscribe to pseudoscientific theories?
There are many theories/disciplines that have been categorized as Pseudoscience in the Scientific community.
The list includes many things that are regularly even quoted in media like Graphology, ...
8
votes
2answers
164 views
Is it possible to run multiple thought processes concurrently?
For example, let's say I have a friend sprinting a 50m distance and that friend wants me to time the race, but I don't have a stopwatch so I have to count "manually". Can I count while simultaneously ...
2
votes
0answers
77 views
Does Cognitive Tunneling apply to daydreaming as well?
I've been reading a paper by Jarmasz J. (2005) on cognitive tunneling and am wondering if it applies to daydreaming?
For instance, if for some reason I'm already thinking about something that has no ...
10
votes
1answer
233 views
Under what conditions does 60hz video produce visual artifacts?
There are some important thresholds of frame rate in video playback that effect whether or not animation appears fluid. This wikipedia page about Visible Frame Rate suggests that a framerate of 60 ...
5
votes
1answer
167 views
What is the cognitive cost of switching contexts?
A common reason to use Conventions and standards in Human Computer Interaction is to limit the cost of Context Switching.
I searched to find general evidence of the cognitive costs of context ...
13
votes
5answers
585 views
What is the current “accepted” science behind dream interpretation?
I'm doing some casual reading about dream interpretation (meaning I'm reading the wikipedia entry) and the article mentions that there are several ways of thinking about dreams from a psychological ...
12
votes
1answer
175 views
What factors improve mood and increase cognitive functioning when people wake up?
I'm a software engineer doing some research in order to figure out if developing some applications are worth the effort. This work is applied to computational devices including mobile devices and even ...
8
votes
1answer
79 views
What happens when a person “imagines” how food could taste like just from looking at it?
What processes are triggered by imagining the taste of food (let's assume it's sealed so that its smell doesn't reach the test subject's nose) only by looking at it, based on memories of food with ...
5
votes
2answers
231 views
Are there any laws of memory?
Several years ago, my adviser wrote an article discussing the observation that a hundred years of studying memory had not resulted in the discovery of a "law" of memory. He wrote (p. 247):
When ...
10
votes
1answer
381 views
Effect of words highlighting on reading comprehension
I'm interested if there are studies dealing with text understanding and POS (part of speech) coloring, or coloring syntactic/semantic information. The studies should solve the questions like:
Which ...
5
votes
0answers
86 views
Chunking Patterns and Enjoyment of Applying Patterns
I've been reading a book "The Theory of Fun in Game Design" it talks about two concepts of psychology that I wanted to confirm are true. The writer the book isn't a psychologist.
The two concepts ...
7
votes
0answers
68 views
Is the theory of Information Metabolism a reasonable scientific theory?
Background
I have been checking out various personality typing assessments lately when I came across a Personality typing system known as Socionics which aims at explaining relationships between ...
33
votes
3answers
2k views
Does writing something down help memorize it?
This is a question inspired by this recent question on the Chinese Language & Usage website.
Someone asked why they needed to learn how to write Chinese characters, since today we mostly use ...
8
votes
1answer
106 views
Problem understanding the calculation of normative (Bayesian) base rates
I am having trouble understanding Table 1 of Gigerenzer, Hell, and Blank (1988, PDF, table on page 516):
Focusing on the Jack row, it is stated that the mean probabilities of Jack being an engineer ...
10
votes
1answer
197 views
Is Behaviorism incompatible with Cognitive Psychology?
Both disciplines have historically been at each other's throats, and Radical Behaviorists like B.F. Skinner often completely reject cognitive psychology at a philosophical level.
It seems that today ...
4
votes
0answers
79 views
When one activity makes you less distracted doing another activity? [closed]
Background: When I'm coding, I sometimes make tea, and as long as I'm drinking the tea, I find myself more focused. Drinking tea seems to make me focus more. Thus, it seems that while doing something ...
7
votes
0answers
214 views
How much sleep is required to restore maximum cognitive functioning?
Background: Recently I have really messed up my sleep schedule due to my procrastination. The internet points to some very basic conclusions but I would like to see actual experiments on effects of ...
9
votes
0answers
90 views
Do cultures differ in the perception of emotions from body expression?
In their classic study, Ekman and Friesen (1971) identified seven facial expressions recognised by people universally across all cultures as depicting certain emotions: happiness, sadness, surprise, ...
7
votes
1answer
122 views
Can psychosomatic reactions be completely unconcious?
I had always considered that psychosomatic reactions, such as Psychogenic pain, while "real" to the person experiencing them, would be a concious reaction at some level. That is to say, if the person ...
24
votes
1answer
905 views
By learning to read and write upside down, what did I do to myself?
If you've ever read Encyclopedia Brown books, you'll be familiar with the backwards writing in the back of the book that explains the solution to the case.
When I was in my mid-late teens (I don't ...
7
votes
1answer
83 views
Are there shapes defined by 3 (or more) generative parameters whose mapping to psychological similarity space is known?
I am trying to generate 4 shapes that are equidistant in psychological similarity space - meaning that they are all equally discriminable from one another - which differ in 3 parameters, such that ...
7
votes
1answer
125 views
What research has modelled the difficulty of mental mathematical calculation?
I posted this also on mathoverflow.
What research has modelled the difficulty of evaluating a formula mentally (for your average, numerate, person, not a trained mental calculator)?
For instance, ...
8
votes
1answer
122 views
Why do participants prefer to give input values that are “round numbers”?
Background
I have just been analysing some data where participants attempt to control a dynamic system with integer numeric inputs between 0 and 100. I've noticed that there is a general tendency for ...
7
votes
4answers
162 views
Why is it easier to remember the correct response for problems with many options rather than just two?
Sometimes it seems easier, at least for me, to remember an answer, when there are more than 2 options to choose from.
For example, I easily remember my pin (14 bit), but hardly the lighter switch (up ...
3
votes
2answers
76 views
Does pain reduce cognitive abilities?
Does subjecting a person to pain reduce his cognitive abilities?
If so, what is the process that reduces the ability? (By process, I mean the changes happening in the nervous system as a result of ...
6
votes
1answer
128 views
What causes systematic under- or over-estimation of general knowledge quantities?
What psychological theories predict whether individuals will underestimate or overestimate when responding to particular kinds of general knowledge quantity questions?
For instance, I have seen an ...
7
votes
1answer
102 views
What is the effect of merely expecting an interruption on performance?
There's a lot of research about how interruptions affect cognitive performance.
Are there any studies that have looked at the effect of merely expecting to be interrupted (withou being actually ...
7
votes
2answers
147 views
What are the appraisals tendencies for fear and anger?
I understand the actions tendencies for fear and anger. For example: We might verbally insult someone when we are angry. We might feel like running away when we are afraid.
According to appraisal ...
9
votes
1answer
194 views
Cognitive explanation of why beta blockers are effective for anxiety
Beta blockers essentially reduce physical effects of anxiety and panic disorder, but there is no proof that there is a direct effect on anxiety. Some scientists believe there is an indirect effect.
...
2
votes
1answer
225 views
Beyond a certain level, is reading comprehension affected more by psychological intuition than by verbal intelligence?
Certainly, you have reading comprehension passages on the SAT, GRE, and LSAT. But beyond that point, is it really possible to measure reading comprehension through multiple-choice tests? There are ...
11
votes
4answers
496 views
Why are people inclined to praise or fear the unknown?
Human beings are inclined to "praise" the unknown, and are often afraid of the unknown. This inclination has led to the creation of mythology and many gods. To this date we are still carrying this ...
10
votes
1answer
402 views
How is a young child able to learn language so easily?
It's a well known fact that the earlier children are exposed to languages the better, as young children have a better ability to learn new languages than adults.
Why is this?
At what age does a ...
4
votes
1answer
137 views
Is learning to do a task automatically an example of intuition?
I'm looking for some examples to understand what people call their intuition at work when making their decisions.
For example:
We learn to type and then after some time we begin to type
by ...
8
votes
2answers
160 views
Bias by which we tend to accept vague descriptions of ourselves
There's an effective strategy employed by horoscopes and "psychics" where they say vague statements like "You like being with friends but you value your time alone"; statements that basically "cover ...
9
votes
1answer
208 views
What are biological primary mathematical skills?
In doing a bit of background reading for this question I came across a section in the book Cognitive Neuroscience: The Biology of the Mind on page 602 stating:
There are no sex-related differences ...
3
votes
1answer
409 views
What is the difference between IQ and Executive Function?
I was reading an article today that stated that people with high IQ's that have trouble with social skills, memory, being punctual (on time), emotional control, and "growing up" are likely to have ...
3
votes
2answers
149 views
Is it a good idea to play an instrument while studying? If so, what are the benefits?
We've all heard that listening to classical music and such while studying can be beneficial, but I was wondering about actually playing an instrument? If I were to absentmindedly play my accordion ...
3
votes
0answers
94 views
Why is a lack of response to punishment in adults considered significant in diagnoses?
It seems that a lack of response to punishment is often considered useful in diagnosing conditions or symptoms. A good example of this may be in diagnosing psychopathy, in which a lack of response to ...
6
votes
1answer
98 views
Why aren't sleep measures consistently measured as mediators/moderators of cognitive performance?
Knowing that sleep quantity and quality affects cognitive performance across many domains, why aren't pre-test sleep measures or intra-test measures of arousal a standard part of all cognitive test ...
