2013 Archive
'Seeing' in the Dark
Find a space with total darkness and slowly move your hand from side to side in front of your face. What do you see? If the answer is a shadowy shape moving past, you are probably not imagining things.
What’s Your Motion Quotient
A brief visual task can predict IQ, according to a new study.
Autistic Kids Detect Motion Faster
Children with autism see simple movement twice as quickly as other children their age, and this hypersensitivity to motion may provide clues to a fundamental cause of the developmental disorder, according to a new study.
Making Sense of Monkey Math
Opposing thumbs, expressive faces, complex social systems: it’s hard to miss the similarities between apes and humans. Now a new study with a troop of zoo baboons and lots of peanuts shows that a less obvious trait—the ability to understand numbers—also is shared by man and his primate cousins.
Your Brain on Big Bird
Using brain scans of children and adults watching Sesame Street, cognitive scientists are learning how children’s brains change as they develop intellectual abilities like reading and math.