There are some really big trucks on the road, 75'long, 14'tall, 8.5'wide, and 80,000Lbs or more, and you can't see them. Don't believe me? Explain this...I was driving one of these rigs up East Mercer Way on Mercer Island one sunny afternoon, and a lady drove up to a stop sign, looked straight at me, then looked right through me and seeing no cars coming she drove out in front of me. I couldn't stop. She is only alive today because as she was about to drive under me she blinked, then she saw me… Continue

This morning NPR ran a piece regarding why humans do not have strong willpower. Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich, hosts of the segment called “Radiolab,” explained that the prefrontal cortex of the brain – where rational reasoning resides – is in constant battle with the limbic system, specifically the amygdala – where emotion resides. They presented Dr. Baba Shiv, a professor at Stanford University who conducted an experiment regarding willpower. Undergrads were taken to a room and asked to reme… Continue

That was the question posed this week in D.C.

The American Psychological Association (APA), the flagship organization for psychology, is divided into 4 main areas: Education, Practice, Science, and Public Interest. Every fall, the Education Directorate brings together 150 or so people in leadership positions within the Association for something called the Education Leadership Conference (ELC). For example, APA has a 6-person committee called Psychology Teachers at Community Colleges (PT@CC). As… Continue

Anxious as a baby? You're likely anxious as an adult. In a longitudinal study, researchers filmed infants under different circumstances. The ones who hardest time with novel situations had the hardest time with anxiety as they grew older.

Where do those thoughts of worry come from?

"In the brain, these thoughts can often be traced to overreactivity in the amygdala, a small site in the middle of the brain that, among its many other functions, responds to novelty and threat. When the amygdala wo… Continue

As we get ready to start another quarter, here is some advice for students. Add a comment here if any of the author's advice resonates with you or if you'd like to add some advice of your own! Have a great quarter!

Here's an interesting application of sensation/perception research.

In this NY Times article, researchers discover that “lost-hiker déjà vu” does exist.

An excerpt:
Dr. Souman, who studies multisensory perception, and his colleagues tracked the movements of volunteers sent into the wilds of a German forest and the desert sands of Tunisia. As long as the sun or moon was out, the volunteers were able to walk… Continue

Courtesy of the good folks at Improbable Research.

‘”Typical Buenos Aires senior waiters memorise all orders from clients and take the orders, without written support, of as many as 10 persons per table. They also deliver the order to each and every one of the customers who ordered it without asking or checking.’”

Researchers put some waiters to the test. Waiters took drink orders for 8 patrons and did well delivering the drinks to the correct patron. Later the patrons ordered another round of… Continue

From News of the Weird (6/21/09): "In May, Ichiro Saito, a professor of dentistry at Tsurumi University, publicly warned that as many as 30 million Japanese workers overstressed by the economy are suffering from such severe dry mouth that the country might be experiencing epic halitosis. [Daily Telegraph (London), 5-27-09]"

When the sympathetic nervous system is activated, like in times of stress, the non-essential f… Continue