Monkey See, Monkey Read

In the video above Jonathan Grainger discusses an experiment in which he and his colleagues attempted to teach Guinea baboons to distinguish between real English words and strings of letters which are not English words. The baboons learned to recognize words from nonwords, exhibiting human-like orthographic processing. The results indicate that the baboons were focusing on the location of individual letters in the words in order to identify them. Interestingly, this is similar to the approach taken by human readers.

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The Ames Room Illusion

In an Ames room, world renowned psychologist Philip Zimbardo can grow and shrink right before your very eyes! How does he do it? It’s not magic, nor is it a result of computer animation. On the contrary, what you see is all a matter of perception. Watch the video above for a full explanation.

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What is Sports Psychology?

athlete stretching

Sports psychology is essentially the study of how the mind affects physical activity and athletic performance. According to the American Psychological Association, “sports psychology addresses the interactions between psychology and sport performance, including the psychological aspects of optimal athletic performance, the psychological care and well-being of athletes, coaches, and sport organizations, and the connection between physical and psychological functioning.” Continue reading

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The Psychology of Color and Its Influence in Marketing

Color, Psychology and MarketingColors are everywhere. They play a large part in how individuals present themselves through their wardrobe, their homes, and their belongings. Studies have demonstrated how colors can grab and retain attention, provoke emotional responses, and influence a person’s attitude (Sable & Akcay, 2001). As a result, companies carefully select the colors they use on brands, logos, mascots, retail stores, advertisements, packaging, and even products themselves to influence their target market. Ultimately, marketers want you to create positive associations with their companies, and do so in part by acting on your strong psychological reactions to different colors. Continue reading

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Bilingualism Could Help Protect Against Dementia in Later Life

study a new language

It has been revealed that being able to speak a second language could have a significant impact on your future mental health.  A recent study has indicated that bilingualism not only has the capacity to boost cognitive abilities in your youth but might also improve brain functionality in later life and could even help protect against diseases such as dementia (Bates, 2012). Continue reading

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