Read about the latest research published in Psychological Science: Infections and Elections: Did an Ebola Outbreak Influence the 2014 U.S. Federal Elections (and if so, How)? Alec T. Beall, Marlise K. Hofer, and Mark Schaller Did the Ebola outbreak influence the 2014 U.S. federal elections? In the second of three studies More
The Globe and Mail: Ever notice that when a big deadline looms, life’s little distractions always seem to get in the way? Maybe your colleague has a shrill voice that can be heard over the otherwise comforting din of other people’s fingers tapping away on keyboards. You try working from More
Read about the latest research published in Psychological Science: The Brain’s Tendency to Bind Audiovisual Signals Is Stable but Not General Brian Odegaard and Ladan Shams Studies have found that there is quite a bit of variability in the way people integrate information from different sensory modalities; however, little is known More
The Atlantic: Let’s begin with a little experiment: Whatever you do, as you’re reading this short article, don’t think about polar bears. This is, you may have recognized, a classic thought exercise from the writer Fyodor Dostoyevsky. In Winter Notes on Summer Impressions, in a passage that launched a thousand More
The Washington Post: Fyodor Dostoevsky, the 19th Century Russian author, once famously challenged his brother to try out a strange task: Don’t think about a polar bear right now. “Try to pose for yourself this task: not to think of a polar bear, and you will see that the cursed thing More
People searching for something can find it faster if they know what to look for. But new research suggests knowing what not to look for can be just as helpful. Although previous studies concluded that attempting to ignore irrelevant information slows people down, Johns Hopkins University researchers found that when More
