MedWorm provides a medical RSS filtering service. Over 6000 RSS medical sources are combined and output via different filters. This feed contains the latest medical blog items that have been tagged with 'illusions'. Sat, 03 Sep 2011 01:59:20 +0100 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5181920&cid=t_99880_109_f&fid=36089&url=http%3A%2F%2Fthesituationist.wordpress.com%2F2011%2F08%2F31%2Fthe-situation-of-eyewitness-identification%2F Read the Innocence Project’s “Reevaluating Lineups” report on eyewitness misidentifications here (pdf). From the BBC, here are some revealing clips from their series, Eyewitness. * * * * * * * * * * * * Related Situationist posts: The Norfolk Four and the Situation of False Confessions, Memory Biases as Source of Prejudice, and The Situation of False Confessions. (Source: The Situationist) The Situationist blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5181920 Wed, 31 Aug 2011 04:01:20 +0100 5181920 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5174665&cid=t_99880_109_f&fid=34750&url=http%3A%2F%2Fpsychcentral.com%2Fblog%2Farchives%2F2011%2F08%2F29%2Fbeliefs-about-memory-interview-with-dan-simons%2F In a recent survey of the U.S. population, researchers Daniel Simons and Christopher Chabris assessed common beliefs about memory.  They found that common beliefs are often incongruent with scientific findings.  Recently I had an opportunity to ask Simons about some of the implications of the survey. What motivated this survey on understanding memory? Our goal in conducting the study was to supplement the research we had done for our book, The Invisible Gorilla. The book focuses on everyday illusions, cases in which people’s intuitive beliefs about how the mind works are faulty. In writing the book, we realized that nobody had ever conducted a national survey to measure how pervasive those beliefs are. Our PLoS One paper reports the results from a subset of the items in the survey,... World of Psychology blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5174665 Mon, 29 Aug 2011 11:53:28 +0100 5174665 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5086281&cid=t_99880_109_f&fid=36089&url=http%3A%2F%2Fthesituationist.wordpress.com%2F2011%2F08%2F02%2Fpaul-bloom-on-the-situation-of-pleasure%2F From TedTalks: Why do we like an original painting better than a forgery? Psychologist Paul Bloom argues that human beings are essentialists — that our beliefs about the history of an object change how we experience it, not simply as an illusion, but as a deep feature of what pleasure (and pain) is. Related Situationist posts: Susan Boyle and the Situation of Sound, “Busker or Virtuoso? Depends on the Situation,”  The Painful Situation of Guilt The Science of Songs Stuck in Your Head “The Situation of Music,”  “Hillary Clinton, the Halo Effect, and Women’s Catch-22,”  “The Situation of Pain,”  “Attributing Blame — from the Baseball Diamond to the War on Terror,” “The Magnetism of Beautiful People,” and “Survival of the Cutest.” (Source:... The Situationist blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5086281 Tue, 02 Aug 2011 04:01:40 +0100 5086281 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4997605&cid=t_99880_109_f&fid=34706&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdrdeborahserani.blogspot.com%2F2011%2F07%2Fpurple-nurple-illusion.html The Purple Nurple Optical Illusion by Walter AnthonyTime for more fun with illusions. Created by Walter Anthony, this vivid optical illusion moves despite being a still life creation. Illusions like these are part-psychology (interpretation, imagination and memory) and part-physiology (depth perception, focus, attention and eye movement). But looking too much into the neuroscience of illusions can take the fun out of the experience.So, just marvel in the magic of how this static object swirls, contracts and expands. And visit Mr. Anthony's webpage for more fun. (Source: Dr. Deborah Serani) Dr. Deborah Serani blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4997605 Sat, 02 Jul 2011 21:59:00 +0100 4997605 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4952972&cid=t_99880_109_f&fid=34706&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdrdeborahserani.blogspot.com%2F2011%2F06%2Fhappy-faces-pareidolia.html The neuropsychological phenomenon by which the brain interprets vague images as specific ones is called Pareidolia. A good example of this is when you see faces or animals in clouds. You can pretty much "see" familiar objects in almost anything. The tendency for us to see faces in other objects has its origin in our neural architecture. It could be said that though many of us use our eyes to view the world, we really see by using our brain.Here are a collection of happy faces. Do you see them all? Do you "feel" happy looking at them? (Source: Dr. Deborah Serani) Dr. Deborah Serani blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4952972 Mon, 20 Jun 2011 13:04:00 +0100 4952972 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4921521&cid=t_99880_109_f&fid=34750&url=http%3A%2F%2Fpsychcentral.com%2Fblog%2Farchives%2F2011%2F06%2F09%2Fhow-our-intuitions-deceive-us-part-2-interview-with-daniel-simons%2F In part one of this interview, we began exploring the limits of human perception with Daniel Simons, a Psychology professor and co-winner of an Ig Noble prize.  This conversation is part two of that discussion. Assuming you can name only one, what is one of the most popular myths associated with attention? How about one for memory? We assume that we will automatically notice anything that appears before our eyes, regardless of what else we’re doing.  But, in reality, we’re only aware of a tiny subset of the world around us, and our awareness depends critically on the focus of our attention. Without focusing our attention, we can look without seeing.  We tend to miss unexpected objects and events because they do not attract our attention. And, without our attention, we don&#8... World of Psychology blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4921521 Thu, 09 Jun 2011 10:15:05 +0100 4921521 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4768050&cid=t_99880_109_f&fid=36089&url=http%3A%2F%2Fthesituationist.wordpress.com%2F2011%2F04%2F30%2Fon-money-and-motivation%2F This lively RSAnimate, adapted from Dan Pink’s talk at the RSA, examines some the ways that money doesn’t always buy motivation. Related Situationist posts: Shocking for Money The Situation of High Marginal Income Tax Rates and Motivation Money and the Situation of Happiness “The Situation of Money and Happiness,” “Receiving by Giving,” and  “Something to Smile About.”  To review a collection of Situationist posts exploring the causes and consequences of happiness, click here. (Source: The Situationist) The Situationist blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4768050 Sat, 30 Apr 2011 04:01:58 +0100 4768050 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4753750&cid=t_99880_109_f&fid=34706&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdrdeborahserani.blogspot.com%2F2011%2F04%2Fpareidolia-royal-edition.html The neuropsychological phenomenon by which the brain interprets vague images as specific ones is called Pareidolia. A good example of this is when you see faces or animals in clouds. You can pretty much "see" familiar objects in almost anything.Take a look at the spotted jelly bean above? See anything?I could see a face at first, but when it was paired with this, it became unmistakable.The future queen of England, Kate Middleton. (Source: Dr. Deborah Serani) Dr. Deborah Serani blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4753750 Tue, 26 Apr 2011 01:40:00 +0100 4753750 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4734208&cid=t_99880_109_f&fid=34750&url=http%3A%2F%2Fpsychcentral.com%2Fblog%2Farchives%2F2011%2F04%2F19%2Fwant-a-happier-marriage-unrealistically-idealize-your-partner%2F If ignorance is bliss, then delusion is even better — if you’re in a new marriage, anyways. So says new research from investigators at the University at Buffalo, who examined 193 newly-married couples over three years to see what kinds of variables might predict greater marital satisfaction. How could this be? Weren’t we always told the common wisdom — that we needed to be realistic in our relationships, and not look for that Knight in Shining Armor who comes to our rescue (or a Maiden trapped in a castle tower who needs rescuing)? Apparently the common wisdom may need to be revisited, because continuing to idealize your partner long after the glow of the wedding fades away seems to help keep you happy. Read on to learn more… This isn’t the first resear... World of Psychology blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4734208 Tue, 19 Apr 2011 17:59:56 +0100 4734208 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4719937&cid=t_99880_109_f&fid=36089&url=http%3A%2F%2Fthesituationist.wordpress.com%2F2011%2F04%2F15%2Fthe-illusion-of-health%2F From Time: If a box of chocolate cookies had an “organic” label, would you feel less guilty about eating them? Would you think they were more nutritious, or tastier? Economists who study social psychology refer to something called the “halo effect,” a bias in judgment that causes you to assume that one positive attribute comes packaged with a bunch of others. For example, you might perceive your attractive coworker as being more capable as well. According to a new study by Jenny Wan-chen Lee, a graduate student at Cornell University’s Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management, the halo effect extends to food too: if people are told a food is “organic,” they’re also biased to believe it’s more nutritious and better tasting. Lee&#8... The Situationist blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4719937 Fri, 15 Apr 2011 04:01:42 +0100 4719937 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4704722&cid=t_99880_109_f&fid=36089&url=http%3A%2F%2Fthesituationist.wordpress.com%2F2011%2F04%2F13%2Fmemory-biases-as-source-of-prejudice%2F From Miller-McCune: A recent poll finding nearly half of Mississippi Republicans disapprove of interracial marriage is a disturbing reminder of the continuing prejudice faced by minority groups in 21st-century America. Why is such bias seemingly immune to eradication, and why does it seem to be more prevalentamong social conservatives? A fascinating new study from Italy suggests at least part of the answer can be traced to the way we process information and form political attitudes. Psychologists Luigi Castelli and Luciana Carraro of the University of Padua present evidence that our perception of minority groups is often distorted due to inaccurate recall of information. This phenomenon, they add, is more pronounced among social conservatives. Presented with a series of facts abou... The Situationist blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4704722 Wed, 13 Apr 2011 04:01:12 +0100 4704722 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4501689&cid=t_99880_122_f&fid=36582&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FSharpBrains%2F%7E3%2FfdPGYPyz51Y%2F The following is an excerpt from “Sleights of Minds: What the Neuroscience of Magic Reveals about Our Everyday Deceptions.” by Stephen L. Macknik and Susana Martinez-Conde with Sandra Blakeslee, published by Henry Holt and Co., LLC (© 2010 by  Stephen L. Macknik and Susana Martinez-Conde). Visual illusions are fascinating. They have both been used by artists and studied by scientists. Read on to learn how art can help science understand the secrets of how we perceive the world around use. Chapter 3. The Brother who Faked a Dome Visual Illusions in Art and Science Vision scientists like us seek to understand how we see, from both a psychological and a biological perspective, and our discipline has a long tradition of studying visual artists such as painters and sculptors. Scientists d... SharpBrains blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4501689 Mon, 21 Feb 2011 15:37:23 +0100 4501689 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4399675&cid=t_99880_122_f&fid=36506&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FBrainSciencePodcastBlog%2F%7E3%2FEyca52pE8hg%2Fmagic-and-the-brain-bsp-72.html Discussion Forum is moving to Goodreads.com. Click here to visit our new group.   Subscribe to the Brain Science Podcast:   Send me feedback at gincampbell at mac dot com or leave voice mail at 205-202-0663. (Source: the Brain Science Podcast and Blog with Dr. Ginger Campbell) the Brain Science Podcast and Blog with Dr. Ginger Campbell blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4399675 Wed, 26 Jan 2011 14:11:56 +0100 4399675 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4322555&cid=t_99880_109_f&fid=36089&url=http%3A%2F%2Fthesituationist.wordpress.com%2F2011%2F01%2F07%2Fchris-chabris-and-the-invisible-gorilla%2F Tom Vanderbilt Reviews The Invisible Gorilla: “Do you remember when you first saw–or more likely, didn’t see–the gorilla? For me it was one afternoon a number of years ago when I clicked open one of those noxious-but-irresistible forwarded emails (“You Won’t Believe Your Eyes!”). The task was simple–count the number of passes in a tight cluster of basketball players–but the ensuing result was astonishing: As I dutifully (and correctly) tracked the number of passes made, a guy in a gorilla suit had strolled into the center, beat his chest, and sauntered off. But I never saw the gorilla. And I was hardly alone. The video, which went on to become a global viral sensation, brought “inattentional blindness”–a once comparati... The Situationist blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4322555 Fri, 07 Jan 2011 06:49:21 +0100 4322555 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4314052&cid=t_99880_109_f&fid=34761&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedblitz.com%2F%7E%2F23300292%2F0%2Fneuromarketing%7EThe-BMW-Logo-That-Wasnt-Really-There.htm Stare at a lightbulb for a few seconds, and when you look away you’ll see a colored spot no matter where you look. That’s an “afterimage,” and these ghostly remains of what you are looking at can be much more interesting than a mere bright spot. Here’s a demonstration of a color afterimage: In that [...] CommentsWow, very creative use of the afterimage effect. I'd love to ... by RobertNothing sneaky about it! I think it is very cool and very ... by MikePlus 3 more...Related StoriesThe BMW Logo That Wasn’t Really ThereSubliminal Negativity WorksSmall Surprise, Big Mood Change (Source: Neuromarketing) Neuromarketing blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4314052 Wed, 05 Jan 2011 13:58:20 +0100 4314052 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4294729&cid=t_99880_109_f&fid=38950&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.shockmd.com%2F2010%2F12%2F29%2Fthe-progress-bar-illusion%2F Simple optical illusions can make it seem like the progress bars on your file downloads are moving faster than they actually are (see video above). Ripple effects and pulses of light are among the tricks computer programmers can use to keep you waiting those extra seconds.   Related posts:Light and Depression: Round Up Reorganizing Computers (Source: Dr Shock MD PhD) Dr Shock MD PhD blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4294729 Wed, 29 Dec 2010 06:24:54 +0100 4294729 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4237937&cid=t_99880_109_f&fid=34706&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdrdeborahserani.blogspot.com%2F2010%2F12%2Fpareidolia-is-the-tendency-to-see-faces.html Pareidolia is a the tendency to see faces in inanimate objects. This neuropsychological phenomenon is sometimes called a cognitive illusion - whereby our eyes see something and our mind interprets its structure. The result is the experience of seeing something that really is not there.Have some fun and see if you can find the faces in these photos. My favorite is the face of the dog in the clouds. Which is yours? (Source: Dr. Deborah Serani) Dr. Deborah Serani blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4237937 Tue, 07 Dec 2010 15:33:00 +0100 4237937 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4214311&cid=t_99880_122_f&fid=36582&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FSharpBrains%2F%7E3%2F_hBTJuht35c%2F Over the last four years we have posted over 100 puzzles, teasers, riddles, illusions, and every form of mental exercise that both challenges and enlightens our minds. Below you have a selection of the ten most popular ones among SharpBrains readers. Enjoy! Top Ten Brain Teasers and Games for Kids and Adults alike 1. Can you count?: Basketball attention experiment (Interactive). 2. Which way is the bus heading?. 3. Words in your brain: do you know where words are “stored” in your brain?. 4. Please Spot the Differences. 5. Do you think you know the colors?: Quick, try the Stroop Test. 6. Clinically proven Stress Management tip. 7. Riddle for the Whole Brain: The Blind Beggar. 8. What is going on with these pictures?. 9. Puzzles Teasers for the Weekend: a few challenges to ex... SharpBrains blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4214311 Tue, 30 Nov 2010 18:51:17 +0100 4214311 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4119372&cid=t_99880_122_f&fid=36582&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FSharpBrains%2F%7E3%2FB0tuOcj_dkI%2F Visual illusions are fun and interesting: They can tell us a lot about our brain. The brain has two hemispheres, each divided into four lobes. Each lobe is responsible for different functions. For instance the frontal cortex (in blue here) is responsible for decision making and planning; the temporal lobe (in green) for language and memory; and the parietal lobe (in yellow) for attention and spatial skills. The occipital lobe (in red) is entirely devoted to vision: It is thus the place where visual illusions happen. The frontal lobe represents 41% of total cerebral cortex volume; the temporal lobe 22%; the parietal lobe 19%; and the occipital lobe 18%. There is thus a huge part of our brain devoted to processing visual information. How the visual system processes shapes, colors, sizes, etc... SharpBrains blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4119372 Wed, 27 Oct 2010 19:02:00 +0100 4119372 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4055787&cid=t_99880_109_f&fid=34786&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdrmichelletempest.blogspot.com%2F2010%2F10%2Fcurved-or-straight.html (Source: The Psychiatrist Blog) The Psychiatrist Blog blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4055787 Mon, 11 Oct 2010 14:11:00 +0100 4055787 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3876728&cid=t_99880_109_f&fid=36089&url=http%3A%2F%2Fthesituationist.wordpress.com%2F2010%2F08%2F17%2Fthe-situation-of-terrorist-babies%2F Over the past few days, allegations of a frightening new terrorist plot have emerged.  Indeed, at the end of last week, Texas State Representative Debbie Riddle and Texas Congressman Louis Gohmert appeared on different editions of “Anderson Cooper 360” to sound the alarm that the Obama administration has been ignoring a critical threat to the United States. What is this ominous menace?  Iranian nuclear missile silos?  North Korea transporting dirty bomb material into the United States?  The Chinese government developing technology to disable the U.S. power grid over the Internet? Nope.  The answer is “terror babies.” According to Riddle and Gohmert, terrorist organizations are sending pregnant women into our country so that the children that they bear will have American citize... The Situationist blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3876728 Tue, 17 Aug 2010 04:01:10 +0100 3876728 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3872615&cid=t_99880_109_f&fid=36089&url=http%3A%2F%2Fthesituationist.wordpress.com%2F2010%2F08%2F17%2Fthe-situation-of-terrorist-babies%2F Over the past few days, allegations of a frightening new terrorist plot have emerged.  Indeed, at the end of last week, Texas State Representative Debbie Riddle and Texas Congressman Louis Gohmert appeared on different editions of “Anderson Cooper 360” to sound the alarm that the Obama administration has been ignoring a critical threat to the United States. What is this ominous menace?  Iranian nuclear missile silos?  North Korea transporting dirty bomb material into the United States?  The Chinese government developing technology to disable the U.S. power grid over the Internet? Nope.  The answer is “terror babies.” According to Riddle and Gohmert, terrorist organizations are sending pregnant women into our country so that the children that they bear will have American citize... The Situationist blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3872615 Tue, 17 Aug 2010 04:01:10 +0100 3872615 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3808717&cid=t_99880_109_f&fid=36089&url=http%3A%2F%2Fthesituationist.wordpress.com%2F2010%2F08%2F02%2Fthe-situation-of-attention-and-the-gorilla-in-the-room%2F Dan Simons and Christopher Chabris have a new version of some well known illusions that they helped make famous.  Enjoy: * * * * * * To check out Simons’s new book, “The Invisible Gorilla,” click here. For  a sample of related Situationist posts, see “Change Blindness,” “Neuroscience and Illusion,” “Brain Magic,” “Magic is in the Mind,” “The Situation of Illusion,” “‘The Grand Illusion’ — Believing We See the Situation,” “Neuroscience and Illusion,” “The Heat is On,” and “The Situation of Climate Change,” (Source: The Situationist) The Situationist blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3808717 Mon, 02 Aug 2010 04:01:17 +0100 3808717 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3790798&cid=t_99880_122_f&fid=36582&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FSharpBrains%2F%7E3%2F1ozO8acVTn4%2F Quick note: Yahoo! has created an expanded section with optical illusions and brain teasers, and we were glad to contribute to it. You can enjoy it Here. Once you are done, you can find many more brain teasers here. (Source: SharpBrains) SharpBrains blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3790798 Mon, 26 Jul 2010 21:02:19 +0100 3790798 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3784300&cid=t_99880_109_f&fid=34706&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdrdeborahserani.blogspot.com%2F2010%2F07%2Foptical-illusions-eyes-brain-mind.html Optical illusions occur as a result of perception. Essentially, visual perception involves a three step process. 1) The eyes see 2)The information received is relayed to the brain 3)The mind reasons it all out.Sometimes, though, what we see isn't what's really there. Below are three static, non-moving pictures from Mighty Optical Illusions. Take a look at how they "move" and "float" despite being fixed objects. This is a great lesson in learning how perception is not always an accurate experience. Gives new meaning to "seeing is believing", doesn't it?For more on illusions link here (Source: Dr. Deborah Serani) Dr. Deborah Serani blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3784300 Fri, 23 Jul 2010 17:53:00 +0100 3784300 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3652485&cid=t_99880_109_f&fid=36089&url=http%3A%2F%2Fthesituationist.wordpress.com%2F2010%2F06%2F10%2Frebecca-saxe-on-situationism%2F From the National Science Foundation: Rebecca Saxe (Carole Middleton Career Development Professor in the department of brain and cognitive sciences at MIT) discusses the under-appreciated power of situation. * * * * * * For a sample of related Situationist posts, see “Zimbardo on Milgram and Obedience – Part II,” “Jon Hanson on Situationism and Dispositionism,” “Hanson’s Chair Lecture on Situationism,” “‘Situation’ Trumps ‘Disposition’ – Part I,” and ““Situation” Trumps “Disposition”- Part II.” (Source: The Situationist) The Situationist blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3652485 Thu, 10 Jun 2010 18:11:59 +0100 3652485 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3453975&cid=t_99880_109_f&fid=36089&url=http%3A%2F%2Fthesituationist.wordpress.com%2F2010%2F04%2F08%2Fthe-situation-of-an-airstrike%2F Benedict Carey wrote a great article, titled “Psychologists Explain Iraqi Airstrike Video” for the New York Times.  Here are some excerpts, with the addition of the videos to which the article refers. * * * The sight of human beings, most of them unarmed, being gunned down from above is jarring enough. But for many people who watched the video of a 2007 assault by an Army Apache helicopter in Baghdad, released Monday by WikiLeaks.org, the most disturbing detail was the cockpit chatter. The soldiers joked, chuckled and jeered as they shot people in the street, including a Reuters photographer and a driver, believing them to be insurgents. * * * * * * In recent days, many veterans have made the point that fighters cannot do their jobs without creating psychological distance fro... The Situationist blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3453975 Fri, 09 Apr 2010 03:52:23 +0100 3453975 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3411151&cid=t_99880_109_f&fid=36089&url=http%3A%2F%2Fthesituationist.wordpress.com%2F2010%2F03%2F27%2Fdan-wegner-on-psychological-studies-of-the-guilty-mind%2F From the Student Association for Law and Mind Sciences (SALMS) and the Project on Law and Mind Sciences (PLMS) at Harvard Law School, here is an remarkable presentation, titled “Psychological Studies of the Guilty Mind,” by Dan Wegner, one of the most thoughtful and influential social psychologists in the business. * * * * * * To review a collection of Situationist posts discussing Dan Wegner’s research, click here. (Source: The Situationist) The Situationist blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3411151 Sat, 27 Mar 2010 04:01:54 +0100 3411151 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3318451&cid=t_99880_109_f&fid=36089&url=http%3A%2F%2Fthesituationist.wordpress.com%2F2010%2F03%2F01%2Fthe-situation-of-political-and-religious-beliefs%2F Science Daily summarized an intriguing (and, no doubt, soon-to-be-very-controversial study) finding that “Intelligent People Have Values Novel in Human Evolutionary History,” (such as liberalism and atheisim).  Here are some excerpts from that summary. * * * More intelligent people are statistically significantly more likely to exhibit social values and religious and political preferences that are novel to the human species in evolutionary history.  Specifically, liberalism and atheism, and for men (but not women), preference for sexual exclusivity correlate with higher intelligence, a new study finds. The study, published in the March 2010 issue of the peer-reviewed scientific journal Social Psychology Quarterly, advances a new theory to explain why people form particular pr... The Situationist blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3318451 Mon, 01 Mar 2010 04:59:45 +0100 3318451 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3271084&cid=t_99880_109_f&fid=36089&url=http%3A%2F%2Fthesituationist.wordpress.com%2F2010%2F02%2F14%2Foliver-sacks-on-humans-and-myth-making-oliver-sacks-big-think%2F From Big Think: * * * For a sample of related Situationist posts, see”The Interior Situation of Complex Human Feelings,” “Daniel Dennett on the Situation of our Brain,” “Dan Dennett on our Interior Situation,” “The Situation of Reason,” “The Situation of Confabulation,” “Social Psychology and the Unconscious: The Automaticity of Higher Processes,” “Jonathan Haidt on the Situation of Moral Reasoning,” “The Unconscious Situation of our Consciousness – Part IV,” and “Unconscious Situation of Choice.” (Source: The Situationist) The Situationist blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3271084 Sun, 14 Feb 2010 04:01:16 +0100 3271084 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3126667&cid=t_99880_109_f&fid=36089&url=http%3A%2F%2Fthesituationist.wordpress.com%2F2009%2F12%2F29%2Fthe-situation-of-false-confessions%2F Ian Herbert, one of the very best translators of mind science research for popular audiences, has written an informative and disconcerting article, “The Psychology and Power of False Confessions” for the latest issue of The Observer.”  Here are some excerpts. * * * We know that false confessions do happen on a fairly regular basis. Because of advances in DNA evidence, the Innocence Project has been able to exonerate more than 200 people who had been wrongly convicted, 49 of whom had confessed to the crime we now know they didn’t commit. In a survey of 1,000 college students, four percent of those who had been interrogated by police said they gave a false confession. But Why? Why do people confess to crimes they didn’t commit? . . . . In the November 2004 issue of Psy... The Situationist blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3126667 Tue, 29 Dec 2009 04:01:17 +0100 3126667 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3126668&cid=t_99880_109_f&fid=36089&url=http%3A%2F%2Fthesituationist.wordpress.com%2F2009%2F12%2F27%2Fthe-spicey-situation-of-food-flavor-and-taste%2F With holiday feasts now behind us, we thought this might be a good time to post some portions of Linda Bartoshuk’s article, “Spicing Up Psychological Science,” from the September issue of The Observer.  Here are some excerpts. * * * The anatomy of spice perception involves illusion. We seem to perceive spices both with the senses of taste and smell, but in reality, smell does most of the work. Consider cinnamon . . . . Even with our eyes closed, the smell of freshly baked cinnamon rolls grabs our attention. Sniffing draws the cinnamon volatiles (chemicals that evaporate at low temperatures and make their way into our nostrils as vapors) up into our noses; the volatiles pass through a tiny opening at the top of the nasal cavity called the olfactory cleft. When odorants pa... The Situationist blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3126668 Sun, 27 Dec 2009 04:01:48 +0100 3126668 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3123413&cid=t_99880_109_f&fid=36089&url=http%3A%2F%2Fthesituationist.wordpress.com%2F2009%2F12%2F27%2Fthe-spicey-situation-of-food-flavor-and-taste%2F With holiday feasts now behind us, we thought this might be a good time to post some portions of Linda Bartoshuk’s article, “Spicing Up Psychological Science,” from the September issue of The Observer.  Here are some excerpts. * * * The anatomy of spice perception involves illusion. We seem to perceive spices both with the senses of taste and smell, but in reality, smell does most of the work. Consider cinnamon . . . . Even with our eyes closed, the smell of freshly baked cinnamon rolls grabs our attention. Sniffing draws the cinnamon volatiles (chemicals that evaporate at low temperatures and make their way into our nostrils as vapors) up into our noses; the volatiles pass through a tiny opening at the top of the nasal cavity called the olfactory cleft. When odorants pa... The Situationist blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3123413 Sun, 27 Dec 2009 04:01:48 +0100 3123413 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3063318&cid=t_99880_109_f&fid=36089&url=http%3A%2F%2Fthesituationist.wordpress.com%2F2009%2F12%2F07%2Fneuroscience-and-illusion-2%2F Laura Sanders wrote an interesting article, titled “SPECIALIS REVELIO!  It’s not magic, it’s neuroscience,” in ScienceNews. Here are some excerpts. * * * Skill in manipulating people’s perceptions has earned magicians a new group of spellbound fans: Scientists seeking to learn how the eyes and brain perceive — or don’t perceive — reality. “The interest for magic has been there for a long time,” says Gustav Kuhn, a neuroscientist at Durham University in England and former performing magician. “What is new is that we have all these techniques to get a better idea of the inner workings of these principles.” A recent brain imaging study by Kuhn and his colleagues revealed which regions of the brain are active when people watch a magician do something impossible... The Situationist blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3063318 Mon, 07 Dec 2009 04:01:32 +0100 3063318 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3061452&cid=t_99880_109_f&fid=36089&url=http%3A%2F%2Fthesituationist.wordpress.com%2F2009%2F12%2F06%2Fbeau-lotto-on-the-situation-of-sight%2F From TedTalks: “Beau Lotto’s color games puzzle your vision, but they also spotlight what you can’t normally see: how your brain works.  This fun, first-hand look at your own versatile sense of sight reveals how evolution tints your perception of what’s really out there.” * * * * * * Visit lottolab.org for amazing illusions from Beau Lotto. For more Situationist posts see, “The Situation of Sight,” “Brain Magic,” “Magic is in the Mind,” and the “The Situation of Illusion” or click here for a collection of posts on illusion. (Source: The Situationist) The Situationist blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3061452 Sun, 06 Dec 2009 04:01:20 +0100 3061452 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2977360&cid=t_99880_109_f&fid=36089&url=http%3A%2F%2Fthesituationist.wordpress.com%2F2009%2F11%2F10%2Fbarbara-ehrenreich-on-the-sources-of-and-problems-with-dispositionism%2F From GRITtv: “Barbara Ehrenreich’s new book looks at the downside of looking on the bright side, which she says has undermined America.” * * * * * * * * * To read a sample of related Situationist posts, see “Barbara Ehrenreich – a Situationist,” “The Motivated Situation of Inequality and Discrimination,” “Thanksgiving as “System Justification”?,” “Cheering for the Underdog,” “Ayn Rand’s Dispositionism: The Situation of Ideas,” “Deep Capture – Part X,” “Promoting Dispositionism through Entertainment – Part I, Part II, & Part III,” (Source: The Situationist) The Situationist blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2977360 Tue, 10 Nov 2009 04:01:47 +0100 2977360 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2971942&cid=t_99880_109_f&fid=36089&url=http%3A%2F%2Fthesituationist.wordpress.com%2F2009%2F11%2F08%2Fdan-gilbert-on-why-the-brain-scares-itself%2F For the Harvard Law Record, Harvard Law Students, Anush Emelianova and Gustavo Ribeiro, wrote a nice summary of Dan Gilbert’s recent lecture at Harvard Law School.  His lecture, titled “Why Does the Brain Scare Itself?,” drew a  crowd of roughly 150 students and contributed to Gilbert’s reputation as an amazing and captivating speaker.    Here’s Emilianova and Ribeiro’s description. * * * Why does the brain scare itself?  On Monday, October 19, Professor Dan Gilbert confronted this question in an event sponsored by first-year Section VI. Professor Gilbert, who wrote  the bestselling book Stumbling on Happiness, is a Professor of Psychology at Harvard University and the Director of Harvard’s Hedonic Psychology Laboratory. He opened his remarks by ... The Situationist blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2971942 Sun, 08 Nov 2009 15:12:41 +0100 2971942 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2963174&cid=t_99880_109_f&fid=36089&url=http%3A%2F%2Fthesituationist.wordpress.com%2F2009%2F11%2F05%2Fasymmetric-introspection-and-extrospection%2F Situationist Contributor Emily Pronin recently wrote a very helpful primer on her work on the difference between “How We See Ourselves and How We See Others,” which she published in Science.  Here’s the abstract. * * * People see themselves differently from how they see others. They are immersed in their own sensations, emotions, and cognitions at the same time that their experience of others is dominated by what can be observed externally. This basic asymmetry has broad consequences. It leads people to judge themselves and their own behavior differently from how they judge others and those others behavior. Often, those differences produce disagreement and conflict. Understanding the psychological basis of those differences may help mitigate some of their negative effect... The Situationist blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2963174 Thu, 05 Nov 2009 04:07:57 +0100 2963174 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2950795&cid=t_99880_109_f&fid=36089&url=http%3A%2F%2Fthesituationist.wordpress.com%2F2009%2F11%2F01%2F8940%2F From U.S. News: “Physically, there is no such thing as a breaking curveball,” said Zhong-Lin Lu, who holds the William M. Keck Chair in Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Southern California, in Los Angeles. “It’s mostly in the hitter’s mind.” According to Lu, who helped to design a popular Web animation that illustrates the science behind what he calls the curveball illusion, the ball travels relatively straight toward the batter, curving somewhat but not nearly as much as claimed. What causes the perception of the break is a complex interplay between the fast spin of the ball, the contrast between the ball’s red seams and white background, and the batter’s flawed visual perception as the ball nears the plate. Here’s how the ... The Situationist blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2950795 Sun, 01 Nov 2009 04:01:02 +0100 2950795 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2901690&cid=t_99880_109_f&fid=36089&url=http%3A%2F%2Fthesituationist.wordpress.com%2F2009%2F10%2F17%2Fsituationism-in-the-news-4%2F Below, we’ve posted titles and a brief quote from some of the Situationist news over the last several weeks. * * * From Reuters India: “Brain science starting to impact varied fields” “[…] More and more, though, images showing neurons firing in different areas of the brain are gaining attention from experts in fields as varied as law, marketing, education, criminology, philosophy and ethics.  They want to know how teachers can teach better, business sell more products or prisons boost their success rates in rehabilitating criminals.  And they think that the patterns and links which cognitive neuroscience is finding can help them.” Read more . . . From Seed Magazine: “Optical illusions may seem to deceive, but they actually reveal truths about how our brains construct real... The Situationist blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2901690 Sat, 17 Oct 2009 04:01:08 +0100 2901690 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2894565&cid=t_99880_109_f&fid=34750&url=http%3A%2F%2Fpsychcentral.com%2Fblog%2Farchives%2F2009%2F10%2F15%2Fminding-the-media-ralph-lauren-sinks-lower-and-lower%2F Model Filippa Hamilton — 5′10″ and 120 pounds — recently was fired from Ralph Lauren for being fat. According to Hamilton, who had worked for the designer since 2002, “they fired me because they said I was overweight and I couldn’t fit in their clothes anymore.” After initially picking my jaw up off the floor, I wondered, “Should we really be flabbergasted?” Unfortunately, most of us are well aware of the fashion industry’s skewed standards. Just recently fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld had this to say after finding out that the German magazine, Brigitte was going to use “real women” instead of models: No one wants to see curvy women. You’ve got fat mothers with their bags of chips sitting in front of the television and saying thin models... World of Psychology blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2894565 Thu, 15 Oct 2009 13:09:06 +0100 2894565 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2838973&cid=t_99880_109_f&fid=34706&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdrdeborahserani.blogspot.com%2F2009%2F09%2Fillusions-moving-though-static.html "Seeing" begins with the presence of darkness and light. An image forms on our retinas which sends an impulse of information to our brain."Perception", however, is a more involved process than seeing. Perceptions are influenced by the interplay of the mechanics of seeing and our imagination and experiences.The illusion above moves even though it is a static figure. Research says that the reason for this perceptual experience has to do with the neural processes which take in contrast and luminance. Of interest, are the research findings that says some of us will see it move more fluidly than others. This has to do with our individual hard-wiring.There's more to the magic and mystery behind optical illusions, but I won't go further into how perception and the mind work. I still feel sad know... Dr. Deborah Serani blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2838973 Sun, 27 Sep 2009 22:08:00 +0100 2838973 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2836225&cid=t_99880_109_f&fid=36089&url=http%3A%2F%2Fthesituationist.wordpress.com%2F2009%2F09%2F27%2Fchange-blindness%2F From Wikipedia: In visual perception, change blindness is the phenomenon that occurs when a person viewing a visual scene apparently fails to detect large changes in the scene. For change blindness to occur, the change in the scene typically has to coincide with some visual disruption such as a saccade (eye movement) or a brief obscuration of the observed scene or image. When looking at still images, a viewer can experience change blindness if part of the image changes. For an intriguing example of change blindness, check out the video below depicting an experiment by Daniel J. Simons and Chris Chabris. * * * For a sample of  related Situationist posts see “‘The Grand Illusion’ — Believing We See the Situation,” “Neuroscience and Illusion,” “Brai... The Situationist blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2836225 Sun, 27 Sep 2009 04:01:33 +0100 2836225 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2807676&cid=t_99880_109_f&fid=36089&url=http%3A%2F%2Fthesituationist.wordpress.com%2F2009%2F09%2F18%2Fplacebo-and-the-situation-of-healing%2F From Youtube: Featuring members of the the Harvard Placebo Study Group, “Placebo: Cracking the Code” examines the power of belief in alleviating pain, curing disease, and the healing of injuries. The placebo effect is a pervasive, albeit misunderstood, phenomenon in medicine. In the UK, over 60% of doctors surveyed said they had prescribed placebos in regular clinical practice. In a recent Time Magazine article, 96% of US physicians surveyed stated that they believe that placebo treatments have real therapeutic effects. Work on the placebo effect received an intellectual boost when the Harvard Placebo Study Group was founded at the beginning of 2001. This group is part of the Mind-Brain-Behavior Initiative at Harvard University, and its main characteristic is the interdisciplin... The Situationist blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2807676 Fri, 18 Sep 2009 04:01:01 +0100 2807676 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2800482&cid=t_99880_109_f&fid=36089&url=http%3A%2F%2Fthesituationist.wordpress.com%2F2009%2F09%2F16%2Fsolomon-aschs-famous-compliance-experiment%2F From Wikipedia: Solomon Asch . . . . became famous in the 1950s, following experiments which showed that social pressure can make a person say something that is obviously incorrect. This experiment was conducted using 123 male participants. Each participant was put into a group with 5 to 7 “confederates” (People who knew the true aims of the experiment, but were introduced as participants to the naive “real” participant). The participants were shown a card with a line on it, followed by another card with 3 lines on it labeled a, b, and c. The participants were then asked to say which line matched the line on the first card in length. Each line question was called a “trial”. The “real” participant answered last or penultimately. For the first ... The Situationist blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2800482 Wed, 16 Sep 2009 04:01:59 +0100 2800482 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2727164&cid=t_99880_109_f&fid=36089&url=http%3A%2F%2Fthesituationist.wordpress.com%2F2009%2F08%2F24%2Fis-there-an-objective-reality-outside-of-our-beliefs-%25e2%2580%2594-big-think%2F The good folks at Big Think interviewed behavioral economist Dan Ariely and asked him about the the nature of objective reality. Among other things, Ariely had this to say: It turns out that if a physician comes to you and injects you with whatever – saline water – your body expects pain relief.  And your body secretes substances that are very much like morphine.  So it doesn’t matter what you get from the injection.  You actually get pain relief from your own body as a reaction to that.  Now you can’t just close your eyes and say, “Please can I have some pain killers.”  That doesn’t work.  But when a physician injects you with anything – even saline water – you get the pain relief that is actually a substance you can’t buy over the counter.  It’s like morphine... The Situationist blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2727164 Mon, 24 Aug 2009 04:01:08 +0100 2727164 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2724895&cid=t_99880_109_f&fid=36089&url=http%3A%2F%2Fthesituationist.wordpress.com%2F2009%2F08%2F22%2Fstereotyping-stories-podcast%2F Our favorite radio program, This American Life, broadcast an especially situationist episode in July, which you can listen to here.   The program’s description is as follows. * * * Prologue. Amy Roberts thought it was obvious that she was an adult, not a kid, and she assumed the friendly man working at the children’s museum knew it too. Unfortunately, the man had Amy pegged all wrong. And by the time she figured it out, it was too late for either of them to save face. Host Ira Glass talks to Amy about the embarrassing ordeal that taught her never to assume she knows what someone else is thinking. (8 1/2 minutes) Act One. The Fat Blue Line. While riding in a patrol car to research a novel, crime writer Richard Price witnessed a misunderstanding that for many people is pretty m... The Situationist blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2724895 Sat, 22 Aug 2009 04:01:57 +0100 2724895 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2703853&cid=t_99880_109_f&fid=36089&url=http%3A%2F%2Fthesituationist.wordpress.com%2F2009%2F08%2F16%2Fdaniel-dennett-explores-the-problems-of-the-human-brain-%25e2%2580%2594-big-think%2F Daniel Dennett is the co-director of the Center for Cognitive Studies, the Austin B. Fletcher Professor of Philosophy, and a University Professor at Tufts University.  Here is a brief Big Think video of Dennett discussing some of the problems of the human brain, including, the “very sharp limit to the depth that we as conscious agents can probe our own activities.” * * * For a sample of related Situationist posts, see “The Interior Situation of Complex Human Feelings,” “Dan Dennett on our Interior Situation,” “The Situation of Reason,” “The Situation of Confabulation,” “The Situation of Constitutional Beliefs - Abstract,” “Social Psychology and the Unconscious: The Automaticity of Higher Processes,” “Jonathan Haidt on t... The Situationist blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2703853 Sun, 16 Aug 2009 04:01:18 +0100 2703853 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2691540&cid=t_99880_109_f&fid=36089&url=http%3A%2F%2Fthesituationist.wordpress.com%2F2009%2F08%2F12%2F7755%2F From Chautauqua Institution, here’s a worthwhile video in which renowned social psychologist, Elizabeth Loftus, Distinguished Professor at the University of California, Irvine, discusses her remarkable research on human memory and the prevalence of false memories.  She also explains how her findings are relevant for everything from law to dieting. * * * For related Situationist posts “Emotional Content of True and False Memories – Abstract,” “Mood & Memory,” “The Situation of Confabulation,” “Emotional Content of True and False Memories – Abstract,” “The Situation of Memory,” and “Mistakes Were Made (but not by me).” (Source: The Situationist) The Situationist blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2691540 Wed, 12 Aug 2009 04:01:20 +0100 2691540 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2685233&cid=t_99880_109_f&fid=36089&url=http%3A%2F%2Fthesituationist.wordpress.com%2F2009%2F08%2F10%2Fthe-situation-of-merit%2F The op-ed excerpted below, “America’s Best Colleges: Merit by the Numbers,” by Harvard Law School Professor Lani Guinier and Columbia Law Professor Susan Sturm, appeared in the August 5, 2009, edition of Forbes. It eloquently examines the role played and not played by universities in educating young people to promote the system-justifying illusion of merit. * * * In its recent commencement issue, an Ivy League college newspaper displayed a snapshot of the Class of 2009 “by the numbers.” Although the students had by then been at the college for four years, all of the relevant “numbers” were based on a profile of the class at the time of enrollment. Prominently featured were the 157 children of alumni; the 9.7% of applicants who were admitted; and, last but no... The Situationist blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2685233 Mon, 10 Aug 2009 04:01:46 +0100 2685233 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2637853&cid=t_99880_109_f&fid=36089&url=http%3A%2F%2Fthesituationist.wordpress.com%2F2009%2F07%2F25%2Fleaving-the-past%2F Sam has been an active racist his entire life.  For decades, he has called blacks demeaning names; he has written about their inferiority; he has threatened them and beaten them; he has attended lynchings. Under great pressure from various acquaintances and friends, in his seventieth year of life, he stops using the “n” word and ends the explicit prohibition on hiring blacks at his factory. Ten years later, however, his business still has an almost all white workforce, despite getting lots of black applications, and no managers. Should we trust Sam that racial bias has nothing to do with the disparity? If you are like me, despite hoping that Sam has changed, you are deeply skeptical.  A person carries his past with him, and it continues to shape his life—even when he genuinely beli... The Situationist blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2637853 Sat, 25 Jul 2009 04:01:57 +0100 2637853 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2634443&cid=t_99880_109_f&fid=36089&url=http%3A%2F%2Fthesituationist.wordpress.com%2F2009%2F07%2F24%2Frandomness-luck-chance-and-other-situational-forces%2F Professor Leonard Mlodinow visits Google’s Mountain View, CA headquarters to discuss his book, “The Drunkard’s Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives” (42 minutes). * * * * * * To read a few related Situationist posts, see “Seeing Michael Phelps’s Gold Medal Situation,” “Randomness, Luck, and other Situational Sources of Success and Failure,” and “The Situation of ‘Winners’ and ‘Losers’.” (Source: The Situationist) The Situationist blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2634443 Fri, 24 Jul 2009 04:01:30 +0100 2634443 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2474483&cid=t_99880_165_f&fid=37959&url=http%3A%2F%2Fhealthskills.wordpress.com%2F2009%2F06%2F12%2Ffriday-fun-time-im-playing-with-your-mind%2F Feels good, doesn’t it? The last day of the week, winding down for a weekend of relaxation, family, all that good stuff… To help you prepare I’ve found some fun mind stuff just to keep you on your toes until the end of the working day! First up: think you have a good brain? Feel like testing it? Cognitive Fun has a whole lot of great cognitive tests to tickle your fancy. See how well you can recognise musical intervals, visual memory, the Eriksen Flanker test (no, it has nothing to do with ball handling skills), spatial working memory – oh the list goes on. You can make up a (free) account, and come back to test your skills, as well as check your results against the collected results of others who have whiled away their last working hours on these clever games. For... HealthSkills Weblog blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2474483 Fri, 12 Jun 2009 00:27:19 +0100 2474483 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2452657&cid=t_99880_109_f&fid=36089&url=http%3A%2F%2Fthesituationist.wordpress.com%2F2009%2F06%2F05%2Fdan-ariely-as-a-situationist%2F In the following TED Talk video, Dan Ariely, Professor of Economics at Duke University, behavioral economist, and the author of Predictably Irrational, offers some now-standard but still interesting illustrations of how situation influences our perception and choices. * * * * * * To read (or watch) some related Situationist posts, see “Dan Ariely on Cheating,” “Free To Not Choose,” “Why You Bought That,” “Just Choose It,” “Neuroscience and Illusion,” “Brain Magic,” “Magic is in the Mind,” and “The Situation of Illusion,” “Irrelevant Third Options in Presidential Campaigns.” (Source: The Situationist) The Situationist blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2452657 Fri, 05 Jun 2009 04:01:57 +0100 2452657 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2405353&cid=t_99880_109_f&fid=36089&url=http%3A%2F%2Fthesituationist.wordpress.com%2F2009%2F05%2F14%2Fvirtual-milgram%2F From ICT Results: Despite advances in computer graphics, few people would think virtual characters or objects are real. Yet placed in a virtual reality environment most people will interact with them as if they are really there. European researchers are finding out why. In trying to understand presence – the propensity of humans to respond to fake stimuli as if they are real – the researchers are not just gaining insights into how the human brain functions. They are also learning how to create more intense and realistic virtual experiences, opening the door to myriad applications for healthcare, training, social research and entertainment. “Virtual environments could be used by psychiatrists to help people overcome anxiety disorders and phobias . . . by researchers to study social ... The Situationist blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2405353 Thu, 14 May 2009 05:06:27 +0100 2405353 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2389951&cid=t_99880_109_f&fid=34706&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdrdeborahserani.blogspot.com%2F2009%2F05%2Fcan-you-find-ten-faces.html Time for some illusion fun.Can you find the 12 faces hiding in this tree?Thanks, Angel (Source: Dr. Deborah Serani) Dr. Deborah Serani blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2389951 Mon, 04 May 2009 16:21:00 +0100 2389951 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2386933&cid=t_99880_109_f&fid=36089&url=http%3A%2F%2Fthesituationist.wordpress.com%2F2009%2F05%2F04%2Fneuroscience-and-illusion%2F Laura Sanders recently wrote an interesting article, titled “SPECIALIS REVELIO!  It’s not magic, it’s neuroscience,” in ScienceNews. Here are some excerpts. * * * Skill in manipulating people’s perceptions has earned magicians a new group of spellbound fans: Scientists seeking to learn how the eyes and brain perceive — or don’t perceive — reality. “The interest for magic has been there for a long time,” says Gustav Kuhn, a neuroscientist at Durham University in England and former performing magician. “What is new is that we have all these techniques to get a better idea of the inner workings of these principles.” A recent brain imaging study by Kuhn and his colleagues revealed which regions of the brain are active when people watch a magician do something i... The Situationist blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2386933 Mon, 04 May 2009 04:56:01 +0100 2386933 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2376171&cid=t_99880_109_f&fid=36089&url=http%3A%2F%2Fthesituationist.wordpress.com%2F2009%2F04%2F29%2Fthe-situation-of-climate-change%2F From Pop!Tech and YouTube, here is Situationist friend, Harvard Professor Daniel Gilbert speaking  about the psychology of global warming. * * * * * * For related Sitautionist posts, see “Jeffrey Sachs on the Situation of Global Poverty,” “The Need for a Situationist Morality,” “The Heat is On,” and “Captured Science.” (Source: The Situationist) The Situationist blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2376171 Wed, 29 Apr 2009 05:11:53 +0100 2376171 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2353865&cid=t_99880_109_f&fid=36089&url=http%3A%2F%2Fthesituationist.wordpress.com%2F2009%2F04%2F21%2Fsusan-boyle-and-the-situation-of-sound%2F From Situationist friend and situationist legal scholar Andrew Perlman, we received the following message: * * * “In case you haven’t seen it, this video of a talent show contestant in Britain has become a world-wide phenomenon.  The reason is simple — situational cues prepare us for a stunningly bad performance, and we end up getting quite the opposite.  You can find the video here. * * * It’s really quite moving.  Among other reasons, I think we intuitively realize how much appearance matters to us when we assess other people.” * * * For an examination of the connection between situationism and music, see Jon Hanson and Michael McCann’s “Busker or Virtuoso? Depends on the Situation.” In their post, Hanson and McCann explore how the situation in whi... The Situationist blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2353865 Tue, 21 Apr 2009 04:01:37 +0100 2353865 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2348438&cid=t_99880_109_f&fid=36089&url=http%3A%2F%2Fthesituationist.wordpress.com%2F2009%2F04%2F15%2Fthe-situation-of-reason-2%2F In the mid-1970s, Situationist contributor Timothy Wilson with Richard Nisbett conducted one of the best known social psychology experiments of all time. It was strikingly simple and involved asking subjects to assess the quality of hosiery. Situationist contributors Jon Hanson and David Yosifon have described the experiment this way: Subjects were asked in a bargain store to judge which one of four nylon stocking pantyhose was the best quality. The subjects were not told that the stockings were in fact identical. Wilson and Nisbett presented the stockings to the subjects hanging on racks spaced equal distances apart. As situation would have it, the position of the stockings had a significant effect on the subjects’ quality judgments. In particular, moving from left to right, 12% of th... The Situationist blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2348438 Wed, 15 Apr 2009 04:57:56 +0100 2348438 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2348440&cid=t_99880_109_f&fid=36089&url=http%3A%2F%2Fthesituationist.wordpress.com%2F2009%2F04%2F13%2Fthe-situation-of-confabulation%2F Helen Philips had a nice article  titled “Mind fiction: Why your brain tells tall tales,” in the October 2006 issue of New Scientist.  Here are some excerpts. * * * The kind of storytelling my grandmother did after a series of strokes . . . [n]eurologists call . . . confabulation. It isn’t fibbing, as there is no intent to deceive and people seem to believe what they are saying. Until fairly recently it was seen simply as a neurological deficiency - a sign of something gone wrong. Now, however, it has become apparent that healthy people confabulate too. Confabulation is clearly far more than a result of a deficit in our memory, says William Hirstein, a neurologist and philosopher at Elmhurst College in Chicago and author of a book on the subject entitled Brain Fiction .... The Situationist blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2348440 Mon, 13 Apr 2009 04:01:09 +0100 2348440 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2205519&cid=t_99880_109_f&fid=36089&url=http%3A%2F%2Fthesituationist.wordpress.com%2F2009%2F02%2F21%2Fconan-the-white-stripes%2F In tribute to Late Night with Conan O’Brien, here is a situationist music video with Conan and the  White Stripes to the sound of “The Denial Twist.”  Enjoy: (Source: The Situationist) The Situationist blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2205519 Sat, 21 Feb 2009 15:32:05 +0100 2205519 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2195302&cid=t_99880_109_f&fid=36089&url=http%3A%2F%2Fthesituationist.wordpress.com%2F2009%2F02%2F18%2Fblurh-video%2F Derren Brown uses his mind-tricks to make himself invisible to a film student. (Source: The Situationist) The Situationist blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2195302 Wed, 18 Feb 2009 04:01:32 +0100 2195302 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2141675&cid=t_99880_109_f&fid=36089&url=http%3A%2F%2Fthesituationist.wordpress.com%2F2009%2F01%2F29%2Fugly-see-ugly-do%2F In an article titled “Supermarket Trolleys Make Us Behave Badly,” Anjana Ahuja summarizes a fascinating study about the subconscious effects of disorder.  Here are some excerpts. * * * The Cialdini effect might sound like a new mind-control trick from the illusionist Derren Brown, but it is more sinister than that. It is indeed a mind-control trick, but one that requires no tricksy showman to pull it off. If, like me, you have ever abandoned a shopping trolley in a messy supermarket car park, then you have fallen under its subtly destructive spell and you have only your subconcious to blame. The effect takes its name from Robert Cialdini, a American psychology professor who wrote a groundbreaking book called Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion. This was no pap psychology b... The Situationist blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2141675 Thu, 29 Jan 2009 06:10:07 +0100 2141675 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2090271&cid=t_99880_109_f&fid=36089&url=http%3A%2F%2Fthesituationist.wordpress.com%2F2009%2F01%2F09%2Fmispredicting-our-reactions-to-racism%2F For more evidence of how of the power of situation and the illusion of disposition, read the following mashup of articles from CNN, Canadian Press, and Associated Press. * * * It’s one thing to hear reports of racial slurs being hurled at individuals or to see such epithets in literature or as graffiti on walls. But how would you react if someone used such language in your presence? Shocked. Disgusted. Outraged. Even horrified, some might say. However, a Canadian-led study suggests real-life responses to prejudice don’t always reflect how people think they will react. In the study, which appears in Friday’s edition of the journal Science, undergraduate students at Toronto’s York University took part in experiments which cast them in distinct roles: those observing... The Situationist blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2090271 Fri, 09 Jan 2009 04:01:05 +0100 2090271 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2018328&cid=t_99880_109_f&fid=36089&url=http%3A%2F%2Fthesituationist.wordpress.com%2F2008%2F12%2F07%2Fthe-benefit-of-knowing-your-eating-sins%2F Earlier this week, John Tierney had a nice article, “Health Halo Can Hide the Calories,” in the New York Times about the situation of eating.  Here are some excerpts. * * * If you’re a well-informed, health-conscious New Yorker who has put on some unwanted pounds in the past year, it might not be entirely your fault. Here’s a possible alibi: The health halo made you do it. I offer this alibi after an experiment on New Yorkers that I conducted with Pierre Chandon, a Frenchman who has been studying what researchers call the American obesity paradox. Why, as Americans have paid more and more attention to eating healthily, have we kept getting fatter and fatter? Dr. Chandon’s answer, derived from laboratory experiments as well as field work at Subway and McDonald’s restaur... The Situationist blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2018328 Sun, 07 Dec 2008 04:35:19 +0100 2018328 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2011080&cid=t_99880_109_f&fid=34750&url=http%3A%2F%2Fpsychcentral.com%2Fblog%2Farchives%2F2008%2F12%2F03%2Fgrief-brings-out-hallucinations-illusions%2F Grief is experienced by each and every one of us in a different way, and no two people go through the loss of a loved one alike. One possible grief reaction rarely described, researched or discussed is seeing illusions or hallucinations of the loved one. Scientific American brings us the story: Mourning seems to be a time when hallucinations are particularly common, to the point where feeling the presence of the deceased is the norm rather than the exception. One study, by the researcher Agneta Grimby at the University of Goteborg, found that over 80 percent of elderly people experience hallucinations [and illusions] associated with their dead partner one month after bereavement, as if their perception had yet to catch up with the knowledge of their beloved’s passing. As the study&#8... World of Psychology blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2011080 Wed, 03 Dec 2008 20:29:15 +0100 2011080 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2005520&cid=t_99880_109_f&fid=34706&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdrdeborahserani.blogspot.com%2F2008%2F12%2Fyour-minds-eye.html Face Recognition is the ability for the mind and brain to recognize faces. Many scientists agree that this skill is present from birth on.Our tendency to be hardwired to see faces can extend to finding faces in things as well. This is called Pareidolia. I've blogged about this before, so here I add more pictures to the list.Can you see the faces? (Source: Dr. Deborah Serani) Dr. Deborah Serani blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2005520 Mon, 01 Dec 2008 22:49:00 +0100 2005520 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1947754&cid=t_99880_109_f&fid=36089&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.law.harvard.edu%2Fmedia%2F2008%2F10%2F29%2Fdean.rm Emily Dupraz wrote a nice summary (for the front page of the Harvard Law website) of Situationist contributor Jon Hanson’s recent lecture at Harvard Law School. Here are some excerpts (as well as a link to the webcast of the lecture). * * * Individual free choice, an idea that permeates common sense and legal theory, assumes that actions reflect the stable preferences of individual actors. Individuals are responsible for their actions (that is, their preference-driven choices), and laws can therefore be designed on that assumption. But if that assumption is wrong, says Harvard Law School Professor Jon Hanson, then laws built upon it may not be advancing the ends they purport to serve. And Hanson’s view, steeped in interdisciplinary study in the mind sciences, is that the assumption... The Situationist blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1947754 Tue, 11 Nov 2008 04:58:45 +0100 1947754 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1945210&cid=t_99880_87_f&fid=34872&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.healthbolt.net%2F2008%2F11%2F08%2Fhealthbolt-funtimes-the-many-faces-of-broccoli%2F Can you see what I see? There are tiny faces staring back at you… For a close up of these tiny faces head on over to bread & honey who not only have some macro shots but also the full story on why the broccoli have faces.. Don’t know about you, but I’ll never look at frozen food packages the same ever again. (photo published with permission from photographer Alicia Lynn Carrier) Tags: bread & honey, broccoli, broccoli faces, Cascadian Farm, Healthbolt, healthbolt funtimes, illusions, optical illusionsShare This (Source: Healthbolt) Healthbolt blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1945210 Sun, 09 Nov 2008 00:29:16 +0100 1945210 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1927938&cid=t_99880_109_f&fid=36089&url=http%3A%2F%2Fthesituationist.wordpress.com%2F2008%2F11%2F03%2Fintrospection-retrospection-the-2008-election%2F Situationist contributor Tim Wilson and Situationist friend Dan Gilbert have shown that, although we expect the outcomes of presidential elections to significantly influence how happy we feel, the evidence indicates otherwise.  As with most things, our affective forecasting is not to be trusted.  Gilbert summarizes one study this way: Democrats predicted they’d be devastated if Bush won the last presidential election, they were not nearly as devastated as they predicted . . . , and yet several months later they remembered being just as devastated as they had expected to be. It turns out that this is a very common pattern of memory errors. Our miswanting and misremembering reinforce our continued inability to forecast our own happiness. But what do you think?  Is this election differen... The Situationist blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1927938 Mon, 03 Nov 2008 04:01:51 +0100 1927938 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1862712&cid=t_99880_87_f&fid=34872&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.healthbolt.net%2F2008%2F10%2F07%2Fhealthbolt-funtimes-another-optical-illusion%2F Yet another optical illusion to show us that things aren’t always what they seem…. Pornography or art? Disgusting or entertaining? You choose…. Tags: Exposed!, Extreme, Healthbolt, Oddities, optical illusions, pencil drawingShare This (Source: Healthbolt) Healthbolt blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1862712 Tue, 07 Oct 2008 06:44:53 +0100 1862712 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1853867&cid=t_99880_109_f&fid=36089&url=http%3A%2F%2Fthesituationist.wordpress.com%2F2008%2F10%2F06%2Fthe-illusion-of-reform%2F The following op-ed was co-authored by Situationist contribtor Jon Hanson and a Situationist fellow. “In crisis, beware illusion of reform“ was published in the Providence Journal. * * * IN CASE you missed it, global financial markets have been rocked by a series of unsettling events. The collapse of Lehman Brothers and the $700 billion government bailout package are only the latest in a string of shocks — a string that, if investors’ worst fears are realized, represents the beginning of a much more dramatic unraveling of the global financial fabric. Seven years ago, American markets were in similar turmoil. Such companies as Enron were using “aggressive accounting,” “special-purpose entities” and other balance-sheet tricks to hide risks and represent themselves as... The Situationist blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1853867 Mon, 06 Oct 2008 04:01:19 +0100 1853867 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1826361&cid=t_99880_109_f&fid=36089&url=http%3A%2F%2Fthesituationist.wordpress.com%2F2008%2F09%2F25%2Fmerchants-of-discontent-abstract%2F Tamara Piety has posted her lastest article, “‘Merchants of Discontent’: An Exploration of the Psychology of Advertising, Addiction and the Implications for Commercial Speech” (25 Seattle University Law Review 377 (2001) on SSRN.  Here’s the abstract. * * * The commercial speech doctrine allows the government to regulate commercial speech so as to prevent advertising that is false or deceptive while forbidding suppression of truthful commercial information that is based on nothing more than misplaced paternalism. However, this limitation is largely illusory in the realm of traditional advertising because the processes by which advertisers convey their messages employs means such as pictures, symbols, and music, making it virtually impossible to try to test su... The Situationist blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1826361 Thu, 25 Sep 2008 14:08:17 +0100 1826361 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1825567&cid=t_99880_87_f&fid=34872&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.healthbolt.net%2F2008%2F09%2F24%2Fdavid-blaines-hanging-around-upside-down%2F Illusionist David Blaine has been hanging around, upside down for the past couple of days. You can find him at the swinging in the breeze above the Wollmann ice rink in Central Park, New York. Its a stunt that requires a great deal of endurance, focus, and might I add, stupidity. Medical, hanging up side down for long periods of time is simply not a good idea. It can mess with the heart and cause the blood pressure to rise. There’s increased risk of brain haemorrhage, seizures, and blindness because of all the blood pooling in the brain and skull. It can also cause breathing problems - with the diaphragm upside down, the intestines will be exerting pressure on the lungs, making breathing more difficult. And of course, there’s less blood, and therefore oxygen, going to the le... Healthbolt blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1825567 Wed, 24 Sep 2008 11:16:27 +0100 1825567 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1798602&cid=t_99880_109_f&fid=36089&url=http%3A%2F%2Fthesituationist.wordpress.com%2F2008%2F09%2F17%2Fthe-markets-personality-dispositionalizing-situational-characters%2F Joel Garreau and Shankar Vedantam have a nice article, “Dealing with Scary Mr. Market,” in Tuesday’s Washington Post about the human tendency to see human tendencies in non-humans.  The inclination to anthropomorphize is, in our view, better understood as another example of the inclination to dispositionalize — a misleading bias even when directed at the human animal. Here are some excerpts from the article. * * * A rough beast prowled yesterday. If you read the business press, the market woke up with “jitters” after playing “a game of chicken.” It wound up suffering from “dizziness,” recoiling from a “campfire” possibly turning into a “forest fire,” or a destructive “tsunami.” Really? The mar... The Situationist blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1798602 Wed, 17 Sep 2008 04:01:23 +0100 1798602 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1790596&cid=t_99880_109_f&fid=36089&url=http%3A%2F%2Fthesituationist.wordpress.com%2F2008%2F09%2F14%2Fvirtual-bias%2F This study suggests that interactions among strangers within the virtual world are very similar to interactions between strangers in the real world,” Eastwick said. The study suggests that users in online virtual environments routinely extend their social selves to inhabit their online avatars. “People are increasing the amount of social interaction that takes place online, whether through participation in virtual worlds or other online communities or even just social networks like Facebook or Twitter,” Gardner said. “And all these environments present potentially fertile testing grounds for new psychological theories.” * * * For related Situationist posts, see “Judging One by the Actions of Another,” “Virtual Infection, Disease Dynamics, an... The Situationist blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1790596 Sun, 14 Sep 2008 04:01:54 +0100 1790596 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1755337&cid=t_99880_109_f&fid=36089&url=http%3A%2F%2Fthesituationist.wordpress.com%2F2008%2F09%2F03%2Fcategorically-biased-abstract%2F Ron Chen and Situationist contributor Jon Hanson recently posted their article, “Categorically Biased: The Influence of Knowledge Structures on Law and Legal Theory” (77 S. Calif. L. Rev. 1103) on SSRN. Here’s the abstract. * * * This Article focuses primarily on one slice of social psychology and social cognition research, namely the vast and vibrant field examining the integral role that knowledge structures play in the way we attend to, remember, and draw inferences about information we encounter and, more generally, the way we make sense of our world. The human system of processing information is, in many cases, an efficient means of understanding our worlds and ourselves. Classification of people, objects, and other stimuli is often both indispensable and ineluctable... The Situationist blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1755337 Wed, 03 Sep 2008 04:01:29 +0100 1755337 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1734348&cid=t_99880_109_f&fid=36089&url=http%3A%2F%2Fthesituationist.wordpress.com%2F2008%2F08%2F25%2Fthe-situation-of-spinning%2F In which direction does the dancer in the image appear to be spinning? The answer:  It depends on your situation. From Neurologica Blog: * * * These kinds of optical illusions . . . reveal . . . how our brain processes visual information in order to create a visual model of the world. The visual system evolved to make certain assumptions that are almost always right (like, if something is smaller is it likely farther away). But these assumptions can be exploited to created a false visual construction, or an optical illusion. The spinning girl is a form of the more general spinning silhouette illusion. The image is not objectively “spinning” in one direction or the other. It is a two-dimensional image that is simply shifting back and forth. But our brains did not evolve to interpret t... The Situationist blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1734348 Mon, 25 Aug 2008 18:14:45 +0100 1734348 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1720620&cid=t_99880_109_f&fid=36089&url=http%3A%2F%2Fthesituationist.wordpress.com%2F2008%2F08%2F21%2Fthe-situation-of-eating-part-ii%2F Monday’s Boston Globe had a nice article, titled “Environmental cues affect how much you eat,” by Judy Foreman on the Situation of Eating. We’ve included the introduction below. * * * Next time you sit down to dinner, dim the lights - but not too much. Both bright light and dim light may make you eat more. Watch the background music, too. If it’s too fast, you’ll eat fast, and therefore more; too slow and you’ll keep eating. And think small for plates - a portion that looks skimpy on a dinner plate looks ample on a salad plate. The more that researchers study obesity, the more they are finding that portion control is key to successful weight loss. Often, people think they’re eating much less than really are. And these perceptions can be influ... The Situationist blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1720620 Thu, 21 Aug 2008 05:59:20 +0100 1720620 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1696135&cid=t_99880_87_f&fid=34872&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.healthbolt.net%2F2008%2F08%2F11%2Fhealthbolt-funtime-opitical-illusions%2F Best optical illusions - More amazing video clips are a click away Tags: Healthbolt, optical illusions, perceptions, quizzesShare This (Source: Healthbolt) Healthbolt blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1696135 Tue, 12 Aug 2008 00:43:11 +0100 1696135 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1646500&cid=t_99880_109_f&fid=36089&url=http%3A%2F%2Fthesituationist.wordpress.com%2F2008%2F07%2F22%2Fsome-reflections-on-reflections%2F Natalie Angier has a terrific piece in today’s New York Times titled “Mirrors Don’t Lie. Mislead? Oh, Yes.” The article is worth reading in its entirety. Here is a taste of what you’ll find. * * * [R]esearchers have determined that mirrors can subtly affect human behavior, often in surprisingly positive ways. Subjects tested in a room with a mirror have been found to work harder, to be more helpful and to be less inclined to cheat, compared with control groups performing the same exercises in nonmirrored settings. Reporting in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, C. Neil Macrae, Galen V. Bodenhausen and Alan B. Milne found that people in a room with a mirror were comparatively less likely to judge others based on social stereotypes about, for example,... The Situationist blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1646500 Wed, 23 Jul 2008 04:02:05 +0100 1646500 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1547074&cid=t_99880_109_f&fid=36089&url=http%3A%2F%2Fthesituationist.wordpress.com%2F2008%2F06%2F25%2Fthe-situation-of-illusion%2F In a paper that Ronald Chen and I wrote a few years ago (part of our “Illusion of Law” series), we summarized a few of the ways that “magic” happens and the key role played by “the way people think.” Here’s an excerpt from that paper (note: we are quoting Nathaniel Schiffman’s book, Abracadabra! Secret Methods Magicians & Others Use To Deceive Their Audience (1997)). * * * Explanations that are outside of our schemas – what we believe or what we want to believe about the things we see – will rarely be activated. It is often the case that we simply cannot fathom that the magician might be doing what he is doing: . . . when Blackstone did his famous birdcage vanish (a cage with a live bird vanished from his bare hands) he would hold his arms outrigh... The Situationist blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1547074 Wed, 25 Jun 2008 23:26:47 +0100 1547074 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2523122&cid=t_99880_109_f&fid=34759&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2Fscienceblogs%2Fmixingmemory%2F%7E3%2FWcpD1EuJ-Ao%2Fcool_visual_illusions_the_ghos.php UPDATE: I've messed with some of the images below the fold, which will hopefully make it easier for people to see the illusion without having to move all round the room. Last year, Rob Jenkins published a seriously spooky-looking illusion (it freaks my son out) in the journal Perception (1). Take a look at this face (from Jenkins' paper, Figure 1, p. 1266): Spooky, right? Hopefully you all see a spooky looking woman (it's actually a combination of two female faces, which is why it looks so creepy) who is looking to your left (her right). Now take a look at the face again, only this time, much smaller: Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post... (Source: Mixing Memory) Mixing Memory blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2523122 Mon, 23 Jun 2008 23:35:17 +0100 2523122 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1536788&cid=t_99880_109_f&fid=36089&url=http%3A%2F%2Fthesituationist.wordpress.com%2F2008%2F06%2F22%2Fthe-rubber-hand-illusion%2F * * * For related Situationist posts, see “The Body Has a Mind of its Own,” “A (Situationist) Body of Thought,” and “A Closer Look at the Interior Situation.” (Source: The Situationist) The Situationist blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1536788 Sun, 22 Jun 2008 16:00:36 +0100 1536788 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1526947&cid=t_99880_109_f&fid=36089&url=http%3A%2F%2Fthesituationist.wordpress.com%2F2008%2F06%2F18%2Fillusion-sciences-why-are-we-surprised-by-only-some-of-the-things-that-we-see-2%2F Arthur Shapiro has posted another of his remarkable illusions this week on his outstanding blog, Illusion Sciences. * * * This illusion has special significance to us because, it is a “situationist illusion.” As Professor Shapiro explains: One of my favorite places on the web is The Situationist, a blog that explores how the “situation” (or context) affects interpretation. The site has numerous examples of how objects, people, and events in one context are interpreted differently from the same objects, people, and events placed in another context. * * * The visual display above presents an example of the effects of the visual “situation.” In one situation (vertical orientation for the disks), the viewer interprets the disks with reference to the background context (i... The Situationist blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1526947 Wed, 18 Jun 2008 04:01:31 +0100 1526947 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1521914&cid=t_99880_109_f&fid=34759&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2F%7Er%2Fscienceblogs%2Fmixingmemory%2F%7E3%2F313087470%2Fcool_visual_illusions_rotating.php One of my favorite optical illusions is the rotating face, an instance of depth inversion. I like it so much that I sometimes use the above image as my avatar around the web. If you're not familiar with the illusion, what you're seeing is a 3D mask, one side of which is convex, while the other is concave. When viewing the convex side, you see what looks like a normal face. As the mask slowly rotates, however, you begin to see the "inside" of the mask, on the concave side. Suddenly, however, the mask switches back to looking convex, like a normal face. This is likely the result of a confluence of unrelated factors. First of all, we're used to seeing convex faces (like yours and mine), so we have a really strong bias for seeing faces in that way. At the same time, all sorts of depth cues a... Mixing Memory blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1521914 Mon, 16 Jun 2008 15:50:13 +0100 1521914 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1522552&cid=t_99880_109_f&fid=36089&url=http%3A%2F%2Fthesituationist.wordpress.com%2F2008%2F06%2F16%2Fslight-of-head%2F (Source: The Situationist) The Situationist blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1522552 Mon, 16 Jun 2008 04:48:26 +0100 1522552 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1519030&cid=t_99880_109_f&fid=36089&url=http%3A%2F%2Fthesituationist.wordpress.com%2F2008%2F06%2F14%2Ften-optical-illusions-and-an-ad%2F (Source: The Situationist) The Situationist blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1519030 Sat, 14 Jun 2008 17:00:16 +0100 1519030 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1516935&cid=t_99880_109_f&fid=36089&url=http%3A%2F%2Fthesituationist.wordpress.com%2F2008%2F06%2F13%2Fkevin-james-illusion%2F (Source: The Situationist) The Situationist blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1516935 Fri, 13 Jun 2008 04:01:48 +0100 1516935 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1509357&cid=t_99880_109_f&fid=36089&url=http%3A%2F%2Fthesituationist.wordpress.com%2F2008%2F06%2F10%2Fal-seckels-illusions%2F (Source: The Situationist) The Situationist blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1509357 Tue, 10 Jun 2008 18:13:36 +0100 1509357 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1502452&cid=t_99880_109_f&fid=34759&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2F%7Er%2Fscienceblogs%2Fmixingmemory%2F%7E3%2F308283203%2Fcool_visual_illusions_freaky_f.php I love afterimages and aftereffects, so I was excited to see that the 2008 winner for Best Illusion of the Year is a new afterimage illusion. To see the illusion for your self, watch this sequence of images for about 30 seconds (it takes at least 30 seconds for it to really work for me): The illusion isn't really strong, so you may need to know what you're looking for in order to see it. What you should see is, after 20 or 30 seconds, the blank shapes start to be filled with a "ghostly" color. That's the afterimage, and though the actual colors only fill part of the the shapes, the afterimage tends to fill the whole thing. But that's not the neat part. The neat part is that the color of the afterimage (either red or green) depends on the shape of the blank figure! If it's a star (that i... Mixing Memory blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1502452 Mon, 09 Jun 2008 21:13:14 +0100 1502452 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1501524&cid=t_99880_109_f&fid=36089&url=http%3A%2F%2Fthesituationist.wordpress.com%2F2008%2F06%2F08%2Fthe-situation-of-sight%2F Simon Crompton had a splendid article, titled “Don’t Believe Your Eyes,” in The Times Online last month. The article summarizes the recent research on illusions, with particular focus on the remarkable work of Dr. Beau Lotto. We excerpt portions of Crompton’s article below. * * * Optical illusions are like magic, thrilling us because of their capacity to reveal the fallibility of our senses. But there’s more to them than that, according to Dr Beau Lotto, a neuroscientist who is wowing the scientific world with work that crosses the boundaries of art, neurology, natural history and philosophy. What they reveal, he says, is that the whole world is the creation of our brain. What we see, what we hear, feel and what we think we know is not a photographic reflecti... The Situationist blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1501524 Sun, 08 Jun 2008 14:01:51 +0100 1501524 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1489178&cid=t_99880_122_f&fid=36506&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2F%7Er%2FBrainSciencePodcastBlog%2F%7E3%2F303928978%2F I want to recommend this short piece on the Scientific American website: http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=the-neuroscience-of-illusion It includes an excellent slideshow that I am sure you will enjoy. (Source: the Brain Science Podcast and Blog with Dr. Ginger Campbell) the Brain Science Podcast and Blog with Dr. Ginger Campbell blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1489178 Tue, 03 Jun 2008 18:53:16 +0100 1489178 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1482576&cid=t_99880_109_f&fid=36089&url=http%3A%2F%2Fthesituationist.wordpress.com%2F2008%2F05%2F31%2Fdan-dennett-on-our-interior-situation%2F (Source: The Situationist) The Situationist blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1482576 Sun, 01 Jun 2008 02:38:15 +0100 1482576 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1469553&cid=t_99880_109_f&fid=34706&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdrdeborahserani.blogspot.com%2F2008%2F05%2F10-illusions-in-2-minutes.html This is an advert for a cell phone, but I love it so much because it shows how illusions trick the eye and the mind. Enjoy. (Source: Dr. Deborah Serani) Dr. Deborah Serani blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1469553 Mon, 26 May 2008 23:09:00 +0100 1469553 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1446563&cid=t_99880_109_f&fid=36089&url=http%3A%2F%2Fthesituationist.wordpress.com%2F2008%2F05%2F15%2Flucy-in-the-sky-illusion-1%2F To read more about what you’re seeing and why, go to Arthur Shapiro’s Illusion Sciences Blog. (Source: The Situationist) The Situationist blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1446563 Thu, 15 May 2008 16:00:07 +0100 1446563 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1434648&cid=t_99880_109_f&fid=36089&url=http%3A%2F%2Fthesituationist.wordpress.com%2F2008%2F05%2F10%2Farthur-shapiros-amazing-lucy-in-the-skies%2F To read about what you are seeing and why in this award-winning illusion by Arthur Shapiro, go to Illusion Science Blog. (Source: The Situationist) The Situationist blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1434648 Sun, 11 May 2008 14:00:15 +0100 1434648 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1420700&cid=t_99880_109_f&fid=36089&url=http%3A%2F%2Fthesituationist.wordpress.com%2F2008%2F05%2F05%2Fillusion-sciences-a-new-blog%2F For more information about this illusion and for a new illusion every week by Arthur Shapiro, go to the terrific new blog (and latest addition to our blogroll), Illusion Sciences. (Source: The Situationist) The Situationist blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1420700 Mon, 05 May 2008 14:01:55 +0100 1420700 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1352023&cid=t_99880_109_f&fid=34750&url=http%3A%2F%2Fpsychcentral.com%2Fblog%2Farchives%2F2008%2F04%2F04%2Ffriday-flashback-for-april-4-2008%2F Last week I welcomed readers to Spring and then it promptly snowed (just a little) up here in New England. True to April, however, it’s now raining and warmer, and this is one of those cloudy Fridays that seems like it just goes on and on forever. 10 Years Ago on Psych Central Changes and Illusions We all go through transitions in our lives, and some are more painful than others. But transition teaches us valuable lessons, too, if we’re open to listening for them. Life is short, fleeting, and we all comfort ourselves in a world made of partial illusion. Without such illusion, however, life may be unmanageable for many. 5 Years Ago on Psych Central The Seven Warning Signs of Bogus Science “There is, alas, no scientific claim so preposterous that a scientist cannot be... World of Psychology blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1352023 Fri, 04 Apr 2008 18:04:29 +0100 1352023 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1113876&cid=t_99880_113_f&fid=34603&url=http%3A%2F%2Fginasmith.typepad.com%2Fgina_on_gina%2F2007%2F12%2Fthe-coolest-opt.html Thanks to Steve Wozniak for the link. Wild. Check this optical illusion out. (Source: I'm Gina Smith) I'm Gina Smith blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1113876 Sun, 23 Dec 2007 20:51:23 +0100 1113876 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1043945&cid=t_99880_109_f&fid=34759&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2F%7Er%2Fscienceblogs%2Fmixingmemory%2F%7E3%2F188472377%2Fcool_visual_illusions_the_powe.php I frequently hear people imply, if they don't state directly, that two working eyes are required for depth perception. This is surprising because with a moment's reflection, it's easy to see that there are depth cues that don't require both eyes. In fact, out of the many, many cues to depth that our visual system uses, only a couple -- convergence, or the relative position of the two eyes, and disparity (though there are two or three different kinds of disparity, depending on who you ask) -- require both eyes. The rest are all monocular. The most obvious monocular depth cues are size (objects appear larger when they're close than when they're far away) and perspective (as in the converging railroad tracks). Other fairly obvious monocular cues include occlusion, close objects can block pa... Mixing Memory blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1043945 Tue, 20 Nov 2007 04:10:20 +0100 1043945 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=965720&cid=t_99880_109_f&fid=34759&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2F%7Er%2Fscienceblogs%2Fmixingmemory%2F%7E3%2F172512726%2Fcool_visual_illusions_the_flyi.php From Anstis & Casco, 2006, Movie 1, p. 1088 OK, here's a really, really cool illusion published last year, and that I learned about only recently. To see it, go to Stuart Anstis' page here, watch the first movie only, and then come back here. You should have seen two flies moving in circles with the same radius. The flies' rotations are offset so that one is at 6 o'clock when the other is at 12, but otherwise, the circles they're tracing are identical. Now go back and watch the second movie. As the caption notes, the two flies are still moving on identical circles, except that they're out of phase as in the first movie. However, moving the background, which is in phase with the left fly (and thus out of phase with the right fly) makes the left flies orbit look much smaller than the one... Mixing Memory blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=965720 Sat, 20 Oct 2007 14:58:03 +0100 965720 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=917876&cid=t_99880_109_f&fid=34706&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdrdeborahserani.blogspot.com%2F2007%2F10%2Fpareidolia-faces-in-trees.html Astronomer Carl Sagan claimed that the human tendency to see faces in "things" is an evolutionary trait. Do you see the faces? This tree face looks a bit tipsy to me. This one looks like a creature from the movie "Alien".This tree is totally sticking its tongue out!Hey, this one looks like my hubby when he's mad.Spooky face, just in time for Halloween.Click the link for more on pareidolia - - or see my posts on the subject here and here (Source: Dr. Deborah Serani) Dr. Deborah Serani blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=917876 Mon, 01 Oct 2007 13:30:00 +0100 917876 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=883615&cid=t_99880_109_f&fid=34759&url=http%3A%2F%2Fscienceblogs.com%2Fmixingmemory%2Fupload%2F2006%2F09%2FThatcherIllusion2.JPG Everybody knows the Margaret Thatcher Illusion. If you've forgotten about it, here's the best example I've found (from Schwaninger et al.1) Both the top and bottom pairs are the same photos, but they look very different depending on whether they're upright or inverted. In the top pair (the inverted ones), the face on the left is normal, and the face on the right has inverted eyes and mouth. Since they're upside down, though, both look pretty normal. When you flip 'em over, though, the face with the inverted eyes and mouth looks, well, gross. Aside from being just plain cool, this illusion actually has some important theoretical implications. By the time this illusion was first published by Peter Thompson in 1980(2), researchers were well aware that people had trouble processing upside... Mixing Memory blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=883615 Wed, 19 Sep 2007 13:58:53 +0100 883615 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=720002&cid=t_99880_109_f&fid=34706&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdrdeborahserani.blogspot.com%2F2007%2F07%2Fcan-you-see-baby.html Another illusion for your enjoyment.Hat tip to blogpal Dawn for the find. (Source: Dr. Deborah Serani) Dr. Deborah Serani blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=720002 Sun, 08 Jul 2007 14:32:00 +0100 720002 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=622979&cid=t_99880_109_f&fid=34759&url=http%3A%2F%2Fscienceblogs.com%2Fmixingmemory%2Fupload%2F2007%2F05%2FKanizsatriangle.jpg Everybody's seen Kanizsa's triangle: It's a simple illusory figure illusion, first reported by Kanizsa(1). The illusion is likely caused by the processes that the visual system uses to separate figures from their ground(2), but to date there doesn't appear to be any consensus about exactly how these processes cause the perception of illusory figures (here's a list of several competing explanations). Recently, researchers in the Human Technology Laboratories have begun producing 3D versions of the Kanizsa triangle: These figures are created by starting with the original Kanizsa triangle, and adding three regions with different shades (luminances), which converge in the center of the illusory triangle (see the explanation here. Here's what it looks like with the three little Pac-Man ... Mixing Memory blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=622979 Sun, 20 May 2007 06:44:09 +0100 622979 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=611065&cid=t_99880_109_f&fid=34759&url=http%3A%2F%2Fscienceblogs.com%2Fmixingmemory%2F2007%2F05%2Fcool_visual_illusions_the_wink_1.php In honor of the announcement of the Best Visual Illusion of the Year (via Steve), I thought I'd revive the old cool visual illusion series. I may post about this year's winner, the leaning tower illusion, in the future, but I just now read the paper, so I have some work to do first. Instead, I'm going to talk about an illusion discovered by one of the members of the team that came in third place this year, the winking effect. To see the effect, you'll have to head on over to the Journal of Vision website, which I'll link you to in a minute, 'cause I don't know how to put flash animation into a post. But first, here are the instructions. When you get there, you'll see two dots flashing white and black (you might see some illusory motion, but that's not what we're interested in). After you'v... Mixing Memory blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=611065 Tue, 15 May 2007 21:13:51 +0100 611065 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=572041&cid=t_99880_109_f&fid=34706&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdrdeborahserani.blogspot.com%2F2007%2F04%2Fpareidolia-faces.html The neurological/psychological phenomenon by which the brain interprets vague images as specific ones is called Pareidolia .See the face here? Kinda looks sad to me.And here? Looks grumpy to me.Totally a happy face here. A bearded face. To me it looks weary. (Source: Dr. Deborah Serani) Dr. Deborah Serani blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=572041 Thu, 26 Apr 2007 16:03:00 +0100 572041 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=463365&cid=t_99880_109_f&fid=34706&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdrdeborahserani.blogspot.com%2F2007%2F02%2Fare-you-seeing-things-or-is-it.html This paper towel dispenser looks happy, doesn't it?And this building looks as if it's smiling.And hold the phone - is that Mother Teresa in the cinnamon bun?This neurological/psychological phenomenon by which the brain interprets vague images as specific ones is called PareidoliaCool, huh? (Source: Dr. Deborah Serani) Dr. Deborah Serani blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=463365 Wed, 21 Feb 2007 21:09:00 +0100 463365