Archives for 2005

Excerpt:

Cognitive Daily – What are we doing when we look away during a conversation?
In face to face conversation, we often look away from the person we’re speaking with. Somewhat paradoxically, the closer people sit to their conversation companions, the less often they look at them.

But other factors influence how often we avert our gaze, too. When we are asked personal questions, or difficult questions, or possibly when we are trying to deceive, we look away more often. When we talk with someone via a remote video monitor, we look at them more often than when we engage in the same type of conversation face to face.

So what’s the cause of this behavior? Do several different causes lead to looking away, or is the root cause the same for all of them? Perhaps we look away when we are feeling socially challenged. After all, difficult questions, or social intimacy, or the heightened social awareness involved in deceiving others could all lead to the same feeling of being put on the spot.

But another explanation is possible at least some of the time. We get a great deal of information by looking at faces, and this information places a significant load on our cognitive systems. Perhaps, when we’re asked a difficult question and need to concentrate, looking away from a face helps us focus on the cognitive demands of the question.

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Cognitive Daily – How “gut feelings” influence memory
What does it mean to have a gut feeling that you remember something? You see someone you recognize in a coffee shop. Do you remember her from high school? Or maybe you saw her on television. Could she be the manager of your local bank? Perhaps you don’t know her at all – but you’ve still got a feeling you do. What’s that all about?

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Wired 13.11: The Mystery of the Green Menace
It’s been celebrated as a muse and banned as a poison. Now an obsessed microbiologist has cracked the code for absinthe – and distilled his own.

I tend to be pretty picky about this sort of thing. This example is news to me, though. Check out the list for some others that might surprise you.

Excerpt:

100 Most Often Mispronounced Words
often: We have mastered the spelling of this word so well, its spelling influences the pronunciation: DON’T pronounce the [t]! This is an exception to the rule that spelling helps pronunciation.