By Elizabeth King Humphrey, Scientific American MIND Stumped by a crossword puzzle? Try taking a break to watch a funny TV show. Recent research shows that people in a lighthearted mood more often have eureka moments of sudden inspiration. Karuna Subramaniam, then at Northwestern University, and her...

From the New York Times A summary: Scientists have found indications that your ability to jump to intuitive answers — what they term the “Aha!” moment — may be affected by your mood. After watching a humorous video, brain imaging and test results of subjects suggested that a positive mood prepares the...

By Charles Q. Choi "The dozen students and scientists spread over an area called Furnace Creek looked like cyborgs in floppy hats scrabbling over the boulders. Before hammering chips off rocks, they inspected them with magnifying lenses held up next to eyeglasses sporting miniature cameras and infrared...

By Dani Dumitriu, Jiandong Hao, Yuko Hara, Jeffrey Kaufmann, William G. M. Janssen, Wendy Lou, Peter R. Rapp, and John H. Morrison Age-associated memory impairment (AAMI) occurs in many mammalian species, including humans. In contrast to Alzheimer’s disease (AD), in which circuit disruption occurs through...

By April Nowell Hominin evolution is the result of complex interactions of biology and behavior within particular physical, social, and cultural environments. While evolution takes place at the species level, species are made up of individuals engaging in a social world. Extensive research into topics...

Reka Daniel and Stefan Pollmann The dopaminergic system is known to play a central role in reward-based learning (Schultz, 2006), yet it was also observed to be involved when only cognitive feedback is given (Aron et al., 2004). Within the domain of information-integration category learning, in which...

Maximilien Chaumon , Denis Schwartz and Catherine Tallon-Baudry Oscillatory synchrony in the gamma band (30–120 Hz) has been involved in various cognitive functions including conscious perception and learning. Explicit memory encoding, in particular, relies on enhanced gamma oscillations. Does this finding...

By Wesley J. Wildman Brains are amazing organs in all creatures with central nervous systems and especially in human beings. But they are not perfect. Without forgetting the larger success story of cognitive evolution, I want to explore the way that cognitive biases sometimes produce errors in both religious...

Igor Ryabov The academic achievement of immigrant children has been a focus of social research for decades. Yet little attention has been paid to peer social capital and its importance as a school context factor for the academic success of immigrant youths. Using multilevel data from the National Longitudinal...

"In making decisions, when should we go with our gut and when should we try to analyze every option? When should we use our intuition and when should we rely on logic and statistics? Most of us would probably agree that for important decisions, we should follow certain guidelines—gather as much...

By Pheng Cheah. If comparison is a fundamental activity of human consciousness, then what is its stimulus internal to consciousness or the human spirit or something that comes from the external or objective world? This essay traces the genealogy of the idea that comparison is an activity that forms consciousness...