16
votes
Accepted
Does our brain react as if we were physically hurt when we are lied to?
Perhaps you're referring to Naomi Eisenberger's work on the neural basis of social pain. Her seminal paper found that the neural correlates of distress from social rejection overlapped with those of ...
- 4,256
14
votes
Accepted
What color is this dress? -- And why do some see it as white and gold and others see it as black and blue?
My hypothesis: The world accidentally stumbled upon the first (to my knowledge) bi-stable color illusion
Here is an example of bistable illusion:
This bistable illusion involves the perception of ...
- 858
13
votes
Why can we not see around our point of focus of our eyes?
I basically agree with @Nick Stauner, but I want to add another important aspect, namely the gradient of photoreceptor densities in the human retina: In the fovea there is a sharp peak in cone density ...
- 19.6k
13
votes
Why does the brain skip over repeated "the" words in sentences?
A study by Rainer et al. (2011) has shown that words are skipped and apparently filled in mentally quite often (in the order of 8 to 30% of times).
Two important factors that increased skipping rates ...
- 19.6k
12
votes
How do we hear our inner voice?
No, inner speech does not follow the same neural pathway as speech coming in from outside.
Rather, inner speech uses the same neural mechanism as outer speech - that is, speech going out. The neural ...
- 18k
11
votes
Why can we not see around our point of focus of our eyes?
Basically, the retina contains two different kinds of receptors: rods and cones. Cones are concentrated in the fovea and activate ganglion cells more discretely than rods. Rods are more interconnected ...
- 9,274
11
votes
Is there a difference between hearing and decoding the sound?
Short answer
Yes, there is a difference between hearing and understanding sound.
Background
Acoustic information is processed in different neural centers along the auditory pathway. The ...
- 19.6k
11
votes
Accepted
What happens in your brain when you see a dinosaur in this stenographic image?
The source I have quoted below gives an example of the following stenographic image:-
Is this perception a particular trick that my eye performs or is it processing the visual data in an alternative ...
- 1,154
10
votes
Accepted
Why is sensory substitution not that successful?
Bach-y-Rita's Tactile Vision Substitution System (TVSS) project was initiated in 1963 and he has since been regarded as the founding father of sensory substitution. The concept of sensory substitution ...
- 19.6k
9
votes
Accepted
Acoustic and light wave coherency?
First I have to say that the wavelengths of light are on a totally different order of magnitude than sound. So the parallel drawn in your question "do light waves, for example one with the same wave ...
- 19.6k
9
votes
Accepted
Can stress or training influence the perception of time?
Part of the difficulty in studying time perception is that memory is known to be biased by numerous factors including arousal and salience. So while people commonly report time slowing down during ...
- 18k
9
votes
How to test whether a person is Left-Eared or Right-Eared?
The Lateral Preference Inventory
Coren (1993) developed an inventory for lateral preference (The Lateral Preference Inventory). Several items concerned ear preference.
I found the choice of items ...
- 30.3k
8
votes
Accepted
Distortion of faces presented serially in peripheral vision
Seems this is a newly discovered phenomenon! Tangen, Murphy, and Thompson (2011) describe this as a result of their method of presentation: alignment of the pupils and fast cycling through faces with ...
- 9,274
8
votes
Accepted
Name of a cognitive test assessing whether a child can think independently
The first one is a test if a child has understood conservation of matter. It is an example of a conservation task. These belong to the tests used in the framework of Piaget to test what stage of ...
- 2,414
8
votes
Accepted
Does your voice pitch affect your perceived authority?
There's quite a bit of research related to this topic:
Male CEOs with deeper voices make more money and manage larger companies (Mayew et al., 2013).
People are more likely to say they would vote ...
- 5,824
8
votes
Accepted
Is it conceivable to transmit all sound information in the tactile modality?
First of all, interesting question, and thanks for sharing the video!
Secondly, you write:
There seem to be no doubts that she has the same perception of music than any other great musician...
...
- 19.6k
8
votes
Accepted
Why do those with viral infections feel better after wrongly taking antibiotics?
Placebo effect is not the only explanation, although it can be a large component.
To be clear: Neither of the explanations below are reasons to use antibiotics for infections not due to bacteria. ...
- 533
7
votes
Why is the sound of running water soothing?
There cannot be a single answer to this question which would be entirely correct. Different theoretical approaches to psychology will yield different explanations. This is evident from the other ...
7
votes
How does subjective experience arise from matter?
This is partially an aspect of the binding problem.
Sensory information arrives in parallel as a variety of heterogeneous hints, (shapes, colors, motions, smells and sounds) encoded in partly ...
- 5,610
7
votes
Long term effect of using noise generators
Short answer
Yes, continuous exposure to white noise affects neural responses in the auditory system. First, it can alter the tonotopic map in the auditory cortex. Second, it can lead to reduced ...
- 19.6k
7
votes
Is there a way to compare the subjective experiences of two different subjects upon an object?
Can We Compare Subjective Experience?
Consider this pain scale, variations of which are commonly used in medical settings:
If two people answer "6 - distressing, miserable pain," can we ...
- 4,256
7
votes
What are the main theories that account for why some people like X and others not?
In psychology, we call people's attitudes towards things "preferences", and the emotional experience associated with preference is referred to as "affect", or more specifically, "valence", which is ...
- 18k
7
votes
What is the neurophysiological mechanism behind double hearing?
Short answer
Damage to the inner ear can result in an asymmetric distortion in pitch perception between the two ears. This phenomenon can result in the same tone being perceived as a different pitch ...
- 19.6k
7
votes
If the color black reflects no light, how are we able to see it?
Objects are visually perceived when they reflect light. A black object does not reflect any light. In other words, no photons are reflected to be detected by the photoreceptors in the retina. A black ...
- 19.6k
7
votes
How does the inner ear encode sound intensity?
Short answer
Hair cells in the cochlea can code sound intensity via the amount of neurotransmitter they release. Higher sound levels result in more neurotransmitter release and in turn to higher ...
- 19.6k
7
votes
Accepted
Do cats exhibit the bouba/kiki effect?
The bouba/kiki effect is the phenomenon that about 95% of subjects assign the name bouba to a blobby form, and the name kiki to a pointy shape (Fig. 1).
Fig. 1. Kiki and bouba, at least in 95% of the ...
- 19.6k
7
votes
Accepted
What are the temporal limits of the auditory system?
As far as I know, auditory clicks are the shortest possible auditory stimuli. The shortest auditory click I was able to find in the literature, and which was used in a psychophysical context (i.e., ...
- 19.6k
7
votes
Name of cognitive bias that causes experts to overestimate their ability in other areas?
The Dunning-Kruger effect is specific to expertise in a particular domain. The domains tested in the original studies by Kruger & Dunning (1999) are: humor, logical reasoning, and English grammar.
...
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