Neuroscience

Context and distraction skew what we predict and remember

Context can alter something as basic as our ability to estimate the weights of simple objects. As we learn to manipulate those objects, context can even tease out the interplay of two memory systems.

Psychology & Psychiatry

Illusion reveals that the brain fills in peripheral vision

What we see in the periphery, just outside the direct focus of the eye, may sometimes be a visual illusion, according to new findings published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. ...

Psychology & Psychiatry

Object that appears to be bigger 'feels' less heavy

The 'Müller-Lyer illusion' is not a phenomenon that sounds familiar to many people. However, most of us have seen the image of two arrow-like lines, one with normal arrowheads at each end and the second with inverted arrows ...

Psychology & Psychiatry

What are delusions – and how best can we treat them?

From believing that clouds are alien spaceships to thinking that MI6 agents are following you in unmarked cars, delusions are the hallmark of severe mental illness. Even psychologists and psychiatrists who work with delusional ...

Psychology & Psychiatry

Scientists work their magic on 'shrunken finger illusion'

What happens when you rest a chopped ping pong ball on your finger and look at it from above? Experimental psychologists from KU Leuven, Belgium, have shown that our visual system fills in the bottom part of the ball, even ...

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