People who expect fairness or perfection of evolution are bound to be disappointed. Evolution can only proceed with local forces of natural selection acting on whatever genes already exist. If genes that foster better hearts, higher IQs, and empathy do not exist, evolution has to wait for an appropriate mutation. Evolution does not improve individuals …
You can’t learn something unless you almost know it already. Decades ago, that principle was known as Martin’s law. There’s a corollary: It’s harder to learn something strange than something familiar; or, new learning builds on old learning. These old observations are true for nonassociative learning, like habituation, and for associative learning, which asserts itself …
Though it’s not a published category, disgust of natural causes belongs among the six or seven kinds of disgust. Ekman recognizes seven “states” of disgust, ranging from loathing to mere dislike. In discussing the topic on behavioral immunity, I suggested that other people’s bodily wastes provoke a lively sense of disgust, and that this reduces …
OK, can you can multitask, as long as the tasks don’t conflict with each other. You can hold your breath while you text a message (no conflict). However, you can’t sing a song while you’re drinking a glass of water (conflict). The brain can experience conflicts, too. While it’s easy to recite a telephone number …
Our ability to see with our eyes hardly attracts the attention that the eyes capture with social signals. First, of course, it’s the pupils that attract the curious and the health-conscious and even the prurient. But eye movements are not far behind in lurid speculation. They “give away your secrets”, “betray your thoughts”, and even …
How much is too much of anything? We often judge poorly. A youngster fails to finish a banana split and an old (or not so old) person tries to lift suitcases that the arms can hoist but the vertebrae can’t support. Psychological stress is even harder to judge. We confuse stressors at work with our …
Even walking through a door will make you forget—unless the door opens onto a toilet, I suppose, though approaching a toilet in outer space will still require you to keep your wits about you. Unless you completed your psychology courses recently, the essential facts of forgetting were probably neglected. The main point about forgetting is …
Confusion among students confronts every teacher when old concepts must be replaced with new ways of thinking.
