Featured series 
Tag: Cognition
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Nation & World
The parrot knows shapes
Despite a visual system vastly different from that of humans, tests showed the bird could successfully identify both Kanizsa figures and occluded shapes. The findings suggest that birds may process visual information in a way that is similar to humans.
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Nation & World
Cooking up cognition
A new study suggests that many of the cognitive capacities that humans use for cooking — a preference for cooked food, the ability to understand the transformation of raw food into cooked, and even the ability to save and transport food to cook it — are shared with chimpanzees.
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Nation & World
Smarter by the minute, sort of
New research from Harvard and MIT shows that different cognitive skills peak at different times in lifespan.
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Nation & World
Muting the Mozart effect
Though it has been embraced by everyone from advocates for arts education to parents hoping to encourage their kids to stick with piano lessons, two new studies conducted by Harvard researchers show no effect of music training on the cognitive abilities of young children.
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Nation & World
A professorship and a MacArthur
Jazz musician and composer Vijay Iyer, who won a MacArthur Foundation grant, in January will become the first Franklin D. and Florence Rosenblatt Professor of the Arts in Harvard’s Department of Music.
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Nation & World
Pinched minds
The accumulation of money woes and day-to-day anxiety leaves many low-income individuals not only struggling financially, but cognitively, says Harvard economist Sendhil Mullainathan. In a study featured in Science, he reports that the “cognitive deficit” caused by poverty translates into as many as 10 IQ points.
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Nation & World
Figuring out fairness
A new Harvard study suggests that children as young as 3 consider merit — a key part of more-advanced ideas of fairness — when distributing resources.
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Nation & World
Driving toward the future
In four years at Harvard College, hard work and determination have propelled Patrick Staropoli to a 3.94 grade point average and earned him a place in Phi Beta Kappa. But when folks in Staropoli’s home state of Florida talk about his drive, they’re usually referring to the fact that he races super late-model series stock…
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Nation & World
Just rewards
A Harvard University study built around an innovative economic game indicates that, at least for our younger selves, the desire for equity often trumps the urge to maximize rewards.
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Nation & World
The face looks familiar
People’s ability to recognize and remember faces peaks at ages 30 to 34, about a decade later than most other mental abilities, a new study says.
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Nation & World
Early marijuana use a bigger problem
Researchers at Harvard-affiliated McLean Hospital have shown that those who start using marijuana at a young age are more impaired on tests of cognitive function than those who start smoking at a later age.
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Nation & World
In Milliseconds, Brain Zips From Thought To Speech
An unusual experiment is offering some tantalizing clues about what goes on in the brain before we speak. The study found that it takes about half a second to transform something we think into something we say. And three very different kinds of processing needed for speech are all happening in a small part of…
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Nation & World
Susan Carey awarded Rumelhart Prize
Susan Carey, a Harvard psychologist whose work has explored fundamental issues surrounding the nature of the human mind, has been awarded the 2009 David E. Rumelhart Prize, given annually since 2001 for significant contributions to the theoretical foundation of human cognition.