Tag Archives: cognition

If time flies, did you have more fun?

“Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. THAT’S relativity.” –attributed to Albert Einstein Our subjective experience of … Continue reading

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Intelligence in the Neglected Branches of the Tree of Life

When you think of intelligent non-human animals, you probably think of apes: they use tools, appear to have culture, can be taught language-like communication systems, and the list of uniquely human traits seems to be ever-shrinking thanks to them. Maybe … Continue reading

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False Memories

Do you remember where you were when you first saw the closed-circuit TV footage of the 7/7 London bombings in 2005? Hopefully not, else you may be imagining things — no such footage exists. But if you claimed to remember … Continue reading

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In- and Out-of-Body Experience

Normally our bodies receive sensory input through eyes, ears, skin and other systems, and those inputs synch up in consistent ways, such that our brain can put it together into a coherent picture of the 3D world around and including … Continue reading

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Last Week’s Potatoes

“So what is this mind of ours: what are these atoms with consciousness? Last week’s potatoes! They now can remember what was going on in my mind a year ago — a mind which has long ago been replaced. To … Continue reading

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Chimpanzee Memory

At the Primate Research Institute in Japan, Ai is a chimpanzee in her thirties who has been involved in cognition research for decades. She’s well-known for learning to use our familiar numerals (1, 2, 3…) to appropriately label sets of … Continue reading

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