Cross-cultural differences in risk taking
The study of our way of dealing with risky situations (situations that involve potential losses) is one of the cornerstones of the judgment and decision making literature. It is generally taken for granted that the psychological mechanisms underlying our reactions towards risk are universal. As a ...
Paleolithic art: awesome — but not religious
This would seem to be the conclusion from Dale Guthrie’s massive The Nature of Paleolithic Art [1], perhaps the most comprehensive and rigorous study to date of cave paintings and other Stone Age artefacts. Guthrie’s no-nonsense, scientifically rigorous study shatters our most cherished and ...
How persistent are intuitive (erroneous) beliefs?
My motivation for posting this blog is simple: I am wondering whether it is possible for humans to ever truly internalize counterintuitive scientific principles like evolutionary theory or Newtonian (let alone Einsteinian) physics.
According to developmental psychologists like Elizabeth Spelke or ...
Newborn infants detect the beat in music
In PNAS this week: "Newborn infants detect the beat in music" by István Winklera, Gábor P. Hádena, Olivia Ladinig, István Sziller and Henkjan Honing
Abstract:
To shed light on how humans can learn to understand music, we need to discover what the perceptual capabilities with which infants are ...
Do economic games tell us something about real behaviours?
The last issue of Current Anthropology reports a research conducted by Polly Wiessner among the Ju/'hoan Bushmen of the Kalahari. Like a recent article by Gurven (see our previous post), this research calls into question the relevance of economic games. Here is the abstract:
Experimental games - ...
Beta-blocker erases fear response related to bad memories
In the cult movie “The Matrix”, Morpheus offers Neo a choice between 2 pills: Take the red pill, and you got yourself enough trouble to make a whole film trilogy. Take the blue pill, and forget we ever had this conversation”. Scientists at the University of Amsterdam think there might ...
Face value
As Dan was noticing last time, the ability to recognize individuals on the basis of faces (and voices) is quite fascinating. The ability to « read » unfamiliar faces is no less interesting, albeit quite independant : prosopagnosics with impairments in perception of facial identity, as well as the ...
Dinosaurs go Machiavellian
Neurophilosophy (scienceblogs.com) grabbed the attention of the 10-years-old in me with a post on the brain of dinosaurs. A team of Ohio osteopaths is trying to reconstruct inner soft tissues in dinosaurs' cranium with "sophisticated imaging techniques" (meaning: don't ask) and speculation informed ...
Spatial orientation among reindeer herders
In Current Anthropology Volume 50, Number 1, February 2009, an article by Kirill V. Istomin and Mark J. Dwyer "Finding the Way: A Critical Discussion of Anthropological Theories of Human Spatial Orientation with Reference to Reindeer Herders of Northeastern Europe and Western Siberia"
Here is the ...
“The Art Instinct” by Denis Dutton
A new book by Denis Dutton (the founder and editor of the Web site Arts & Letters Daily):
The Art Instinct: Beauty, Pleasure, and Human Evolution.
Bloomsbury Press, January 2009, $25.00, 288 pp.
We will soon review it in our blog. In the meantime, here is the blurb:
"The Art Instinct ...
Culture and Perception, part II: The Muller-Lyer illusion
Another post from our holiday collection of oldies but goodies.
The first post in the series dealt with Nisbett's findings on different patterns of attention in Asian and Western cultures, and I talked a bit about how certain differences are more likely a priori than others. I mentioned that we ...
Is resonance the cement of society?
Human social life heavily relies on our ability to understand other people's beliefs, intentions, actions and sensations. One way to explain this ability has been to posit a capacity for empathy. Empathy is often characterized as the ability to "put oneself into another's shoes", or in some way ...
What about cognition and society?
When people talk about the relationships between cognitive science and the social sciences, they usually think of religion, art, information transmission, etc. They don't think of another cluster of topics such as family, race, justice, crime, institutions, hierarchy, coalitions, reputation, trust, ...
Cultured Monkeys
In the last issue of Current Directions in Psychological Science, Volume 17 Issue 6, Pages 410-414, an article by Michael A. Huffman, Charmalie A.D. Nahallage, and Jean-Baptiste Leca (from the Primate Research Institute at Kyoto University):
"Cultured Monkeys: Social Learning Cast in Stones" ...
Astounding! Readers use their imagination when reading
La Lectrice Soumise (René Magritte)
Everyday, in spite of the critics, neuroimaging keeps on producing vast increases in our understanding of culture. This week, for example, Boing Boing [1] and Physorg [2] enthusiastically comment on an fMRI study "forthcoming in Psychological Science" (though ...
“Math professor figures formula for Beatles success”
As reported by the Wall Street Journal, here. Jason Brown, math professor in Nova Scotia, identified rhythmic patterns in Beatles songs in order then to produce a "Beatles" song of his own. The result is quite impressive. The issue that arises here, though, is that, while the recognition of musical ...
The relevance of cognitive relevance for students of culture
Last month I posted "A case for the Cognitive principle of relevance" on this blog, and Dan Sperber expressed the wish that I had given readers some idea how that discussion was itself relevant to the discussion of cognition and culture, for indeed, I don't think I mentioned culture at all. So, ...