Psychological Videos

Here's an explanation: My college psychology teacher is probably the best teacher I've ever had. She shows fun videos, has the students do fun activities, and allows the students to give presentations to help the subject matter sink into their heads better. It would probably seem a little odd to see college students making paper "brain hats," but the students (especially the girls) enjoy that kind of thing more than the average person would probably think.

Anyway, the last two videos she showed us during class were TED talks. They pertained to what we were learning at the moment - namely, the mind's perception of things and attention. I enjoyed them, so I thought I'd post them on my blog in case somebody hasn't seen them yet.

Here are the videos, embedded. When given instructions, be sure to follow them carefully so you'll better understand what they're getting at:

Comments

Should Tau Replace Pi?

The digits of π, organized in a very new way Happy π-day! And happy π-month! Today's month and day - that is, March 14 or 3.14 - includes the first 3 digits of π. And today's month and year - March 2014 or 3.14 - also includes the first 3 digits of π. We won't have another double-day for π for the next 100 years, so enjoy this one! For the special occasion, I'm posting two π-related posts - one for π-month, and the other for π-day. In both posts, I'm setting the font size to approximately π * π + π + π. This is the first post, for π-month; to see the second, go to http://greatmst.blogspot.com/2014/03/pi-month-pi-day-post-2-5-common-pi-myths.html . In this post, I am including an essay I wrote about whether π or τ is the more superior constant. This was written for people who know very little about math, so the basic idea should be easy to understand even for people who are not mathematically inclined. Should Tau Replace Pi? A constant is any number or value that ne...

The Geminids

The Geminid meteor shower is coming up! At 2:00 AM, on December 14 (that's Thursday night, or Friday morning), you can see anywhere from 100 to 150 meteors per hour - depending on the sky and weather conditions. That's more than 1 meteor per minute! This particular meteor shower comes from a 5.1 km wide asteroid called 3200 Phaethon. Flecks of debris fall off this asteroid in a trail around the sun. These bits are called meteoroids . Every year, in December, Earth passes through this stream of meteoroids; when one of them enters Earth's atmosphere, it burns up and we see a meteor. If the meteor is brighter than Venus, it's called a fireball. Fireballs are much less common than meteors. This year, viewing conditions will be especially good; the peak occurs only 1 day past new moon. If you live in an area with lots of light pollution, you will definitely want to drive into the country. If you think the weather will be bad, go out a day or two before or after the peak. Kee...

Which Hurts More?

212° F Let's play a little game. I'll list a bunch of possible actions. Each action will have 2 variations, (a) and (b). You choose either (a) or (b), depending on which would be safer (or less painful). Each of the questions will involve an oven hot enough to bake a cake (350° F), and a pot of boiling water (assume we're at sea level). So... would you rather: 1. (a) Stick your hand in the oven (b) Stick your hand in the boiling water ... for a period of 10 seconds 2. (a) Leave a fork in the oven (b) Leave a fork in boiling water ... for a period of 15 minutes. Then hold the fork tight with your bare hand. 3. Fill a jar to the top with cool tap water. Then: (a) Place the jar in the oven (b) Place the jar in the boiling water ... for a specific, but unknown, period of time. Then remove the jar and put your hand in it. First see if you can figure these out yourself. They shouldn't be too...

Cosmos Computed

Search This Blog