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How Carrots Help Us See the Color Orange
How carrots help us see the color orange One of the easiest ways to identify an object is by its color—perhaps it is because children’s books encourage us to pair certain objects with their respective colors. Why else would so many of us automatically assume carrots are orange, grass is green and apples are red? In two experiments by Holger Mitterer and Jan Peter de Ruiter from the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, perception of color and color constancy (the ability to see the same color under varying light conditions) were examined using different hues of orange and yellow.
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Oh, How Wonderful! A Study on the Cognition of Verbal Irony
Irony is commonplace in everyday conversation. When you get stuck in traffic and say to yourself, “Perfect!” we know that’s not what you really mean. But how exactly are we able to hear something and label it as literal or ironic? And when do we begin to develop this ability to detect verbal irony? Previous studies suggest various explanations for how we are able to process irony. Some researchers suggest that we first consider the literal meaning of a sentence before moving on to consider irony, while others propose that we begin to process a statement as ironic as soon as we have evidence from cues such as tone of voice or facial expression to support it as such.
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Money Makes the Heart Grow Less Fond…but More Hardworking
Money is a necessity: it provides us with material objects that are important for survival and for entertainment, and it is often used as a reward. But recent studies have shown that money is not only a device for gaining wealth, but a factor in personal performance, interpersonal relations and helping behavior, as well. In a recent set of experiments, psychologists Kathleen D. Vohs of the University of Minnesota, Nicole L. Mead of Florida State University and Miranda R. Goode of the University of British Columbia found that participants’ personal performance improved, and interpersonal relationships and sensitivity towards others declined, when they were reminded of money.
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The Power of Peter Piper: How Alliteration Enhances Poetry, Prose, and Memory
From nursery rhymes to Shakespearian sonnets, alliterations have always been an important aspect of poetry whether as an interesting aesthetic touch or just as something fun to read. But a recent study suggests that this literary technique is useful not only for poetry but also for memory. In several experiments, researchers R. Brooke Lea of Macalester College, David N. Rapp of Northwestern University, Andrew Elfenbein and Russell Swinburne Romine of University of Minnesota and Aaron D. Mitchel of the Pennsylvania State University had participants read works of poetry and prose with alliterative sentences to show the importance of repetitive consonants on memory.
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Interracial Roommate Relationships: An Experimental Field Test of the Contact Hypothesis
While prejudice and racism are unfortunate realities of our society, psychologists are revealing valuable insights into this complicated human tendency. A new study shows that living with someone of a different race can help to reduce anxiety and other negative feelings towards minorities. In a study by Natalie J. Shook of Virginia Commonwealth University and Russel H. Fazio of Ohio State University, white college freshmen were randomly paired with either white or African American roommates to examine how a natural setting, such as a college dorm room, could improve interracial relationships.
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Hey, Look at That! New Study Shows Saliency is Only Short-Lived in the Brain
Our eyes see millions of things every single day. It doesn’t take much to realize that in a visual field, we tend to look at the most distinctive, or salient, features: a bright, red, feather boa among black suits is more eye-catching than a dark-grey tie, for example. But a new study has found that the human brain retains information of distinctive features for only a short period of time. According to psychologists Mieke Donk and Wieske van Zoest of the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam, vision is only affected by salient features for a limited amount of time after the presentation of a visual scene.
