In this image, do you see some­thing oth­er than black and white? Does it mat­ter if you look direct­ly at one of the black blocks, vs. at one of the inter­sec­tions?

While there are real­ly only black blocks and white spaces in the grid, the high con­trast black and white areas fool the eyes into per­ceiv­ing a gray cir­cle at each inter­sec­tion. The illu­sion results from Read the rest of this entry »

Here is a fun and inter­ac­tive ver­sion of the famous Stroop test, often used in neu­ropsy­cho­log­i­cal eval­u­a­tions to mea­sure response inhi­bi­tion and cog­ni­tive flex­i­bil­ity. Per­form­ing well on the test requires strong con­cen­tra­tion and self-reg­u­la­tion. Read the rest of this entry »

What is men­tal self-rota­tion?

It is the cog­ni­tive skill to imag­ine your­self in dif­fer­ent loca­tions in space and to imag­ine your­self mov­ing accord­ing­ly. We need that skill in every­day activ­i­ties such as read­ing a map or find­ing our car in the park­ing lot. Read the rest of this entry »

In which direc­tion is the bus pic­tured below trav­el­ing?

Do you know the answer?

The only pos­si­ble answers are “left” or “right.”

Still don’t know?

Keep read­ing for the answer and expla­na­tion… Read the rest of this entry »

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Please con­sider Lin­da, a 31-year-old woman, sin­gle and bright. When she was a stu­dent, in high school and in col­lege too, she was deeply involved in social jus­tice issues, and also par­tic­i­pated in envi­ron­men­tal protests. Which is more prob­a­ble about Linda’s occu­pa­tion today? Read the rest of this entry »