The New York Times: Solving a hairy math problem might send a shudder of exultation along your spinal cord. But scientists have historically struggled to deconstruct the exact mental alchemy that occurs when the brain successfully leaps the gap from “Say what?” to “Aha!” Now, using an innovative combination of More
Nearly 70 years ago, psychological scientist Edward Tolman introduced the idea that humans and other animals have a “cognitive map” that allows them to navigate their everyday spatial environments. Evidence of physical processes underpinning cognitive maps emerged in 1971 with breakthrough research based on recorded brain activity in freely moving More
Pacific Standard: Mind reading stands as one of science fiction’s most enduring improbabilities, alongside light-speed space travel and laser guns. But unlike those latter two, mind reading actually has a whiff of reality: In a new demonstration, psychologists have shown they can figure out how far along someone’s brain is More
Neuroimaging data can reveal the mental stages people go through as they are solving challenging math problems, according to a new study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. By combining two analytical strategies, researchers were able to use functional MRI to identify patterns of brain More
Participants in the 2016 Presidential Symposium hosted by APS President C. Randy Gallistel included Nobel Laureate Edvard Moser of Kavli Institute for Systems Neuroscience and Norwegian University of Science and Technology, pioneering cognitive psychologist Barbara Tversky of Columbia University, pictured, neurobiologist Randolf Menzel of Freie Universität Berlin in Germany, and cognitive More
aeon: No matter how hard they try, brain scientists and cognitive psychologists will never find a copy of Beethoven’s 5th Symphony in the brain – or copies of words, pictures, grammatical rules or any other kinds of environmental stimuli. The human brain isn’t really empty, of course. But it does More
