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
67 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.
...
6
votes
0answers
140 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 ...
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 ...
4
votes
1answer
67 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 ...
6
votes
1answer
152 views
How does the mind build a model of reality?
I'm interested if there has been any research or experiments that deal with how the human mind creates and perpetuates the idea of knowing something.
I'm struggling to concisely express the question, ...
4
votes
1answer
188 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 ...
6
votes
1answer
154 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 ...
3
votes
1answer
72 views
Abstract idealized mental visualization improves motor task performance
I practice martial arts (Aikido), which involves a lot of rotation.
When practicing, I find that holding an abstract image in my head, instead of thinking about the actual technique, improves my ...
8
votes
1answer
230 views
Attention Theory: is it impossible to avoid distraction?
I remember reading at some point in the literature that humans are unable to avoid distraction from a certain primary task if this task isn't using up close to all available 'resources' - basically ...
2
votes
0answers
82 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 ...
13
votes
1answer
45k views
How valid is Lumosity's Brain Performance Index and what normative information is available?
Background
There is a test called Lumosity's Brain Performance Index.
A sample profile of scores might be:
...
4
votes
1answer
78 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, ...
8
votes
2answers
174 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 ...
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 ...
8
votes
1answer
80 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
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 ...
18
votes
1answer
962 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, ...
7
votes
0answers
72 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 ...
8
votes
1answer
110 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 ...
7
votes
0answers
219 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 ...
4
votes
0answers
81 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 ...
10
votes
0answers
100 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, ...
9
votes
1answer
150 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 ...
7
votes
1answer
130 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 ...
7
votes
1answer
85 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
126 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, ...
