perception

Q&A with researcher Robb Rutledge on mental health, expectations, decision-making and, yes, holiday planning!

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Have you ever looked for­ward to a con­cert, beach vaca­tion, or par­ty only to find your­self not enjoy­ing it as much as you thought you would?

You may be suf­fer­ing from over­ly high expec­ta­tions, says psy­chol­o­gist Robb Rut­ledge of Yale Uni­ver­si­ty. Rut­ledge and his col­leagues have been using smart­phone-based data col­lec­tion (via a free app called Hap­pi­ness Quest, where any­one can play short games and con­tribute to research) to see how our expec­ta­tions affect our future hap­pi­ness. Some of their find­ings point to nov­el approach­es for increas­ing our enjoy­ment of every­day life. [Read more…] about Q&A with researcher Robb Rut­ledge on men­tal health, expec­ta­tions, deci­sion-mak­ing and, yes, hol­i­day planning!

Five thoughts to think about when thinking about the speed of thought

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As inquis­i­tive beings, we are con­stant­ly ques­tion­ing and quan­ti­fy­ing the speed of var­i­ous things. With a fair degree of accu­ra­cy, sci­en­tists have quan­ti­fied the speed of light, the speed of sound, the speed at which the earth revolves around the sun, the speed at which hum­ming­birds beat their wings, the aver­age speed of con­ti­nen­tal drift….

These val­ues are all well-char­ac­ter­ized. But what about the speed of thought? It’s a chal­leng­ing ques­tion that’s not eas­i­ly answer­able – but we can give it a shot. [Read more…] about Five thoughts to think about when think­ing about the speed of thought

If you’re a fruit fly, tease your mind with this optical illusion. Humans welcome too.

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Rotat­ing snake illu­sion. Cred­it: Akiyoshi Kitaoka

Please move your gaze around the image, rest­ing from time to time.

Then, fix your gaze at a point, and see what happens.

You will prob­a­bly first see ‘snakes’ rotat­ing, some clock­wise, oth­ers anti­clock­wise, and then stop. [Read more…] about If you’re a fruit fly, tease your mind with this opti­cal illu­sion. Humans wel­come too.

On perception, cognitive bias and cultivating humility ahead of next week’s vote

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Many Amer­i­cans wor­ry about the polit­i­cal divide tear­ing our coun­try apart. A large per­cent­age are unwill­ing to engage with peo­ple who have oppos­ing polit­i­cal views, and that’s cre­at­ing more animosity.

This is espe­cial­ly wor­ry­ing con­sid­er­ing how many crises we’re fac­ing that require coop­er­a­tion, trust, and solu­tions a diverse cit­i­zen­ry can get behind. How can we find a way across our divide and come togeth­er for com­mon cause? [Read more…] about On per­cep­tion, cog­ni­tive bias and cul­ti­vat­ing humil­i­ty ahead of next week’s vote

Math brain teaser requiring no math — just perception and cognition

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Necrop­oli Grot­ti­cel­li, the tomb of Archimedes in Syracuse

Greek math­e­mati­cian, physi­cist, engi­neer, inven­tor, and astronomer Archimedes made many great sci­en­tif­ic dis­cov­er­ies through­out his life. He explained why and how bod­ies float in the water, designed mir­ror arrays capa­ble of focus­ing sun rays and set­ting ene­my ships on fire, found the way of approx­i­mat­ing the num­ber of grains of sand that will fit inside the universe. 

Now to the brain teas­er part.

His tomb was dec­o­rat­ed with his favorite dis­cov­ery. Which one of the fol­low­ing three sculp­tures was hon­or­ing Archimedes, and why?

  1. A gold­en crown com­mem­o­rat­ing his famous Eure­ka moment in the bath
  2. A lever with which he promised one could move the Earth
  3. A sim­ple cylin­der and a sphere

The puz­zle answer is below. Please think about it before check­ing it out… [Read more…] about Math brain teas­er requir­ing no math — just per­cep­tion and cognition