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Johns Hopkins UniversityEst. 1876

America’s First Research University
Archived articles

Psychological and brain science

A young boy smiles while holding a gift wrapped in blue wrapping paper.
Brain science
The science of shaking presents
Published Dec 11, 2023 Video
Watching people shake presents reveals little-known quirk of human cognition
Hand holds a brown cardboard box of paper on a blue background
Human cognition
Shaking boxes for science
Published Nov 20, 2023 Video
When Johns Hopkins researchers asked hundreds of people to watch other people shake boxes, it took just seconds for almost all of them to figure out what the shaking was for
Disloyal man walking with his girlfriend and looking amazed at another seductive girl
Psychology
Married people who cheat don't regret it
Published May 22, 2023
Married people who have affairs find them highly satisfying, express little remorse, and believe the cheating didn't hurt their otherwise healthy marriages, finds a new Johns Hopkins report on the psychology of infidelity
illustration of memory matching card game, featuring pandemic-themed cards such as hand sanitizer and a cocktail
Oh, memories, where art thou?
Published Spring 2022
Recent research highlights the pandemic's impact on our perception of time and memory. Can we jumpstart new memories, or is this shift permanent? / Johns Hopkins Magazine
Two female bats mid-flight
Brain sciences
Study aims to unlock secrets of animal time perception
Published April 25, 2022
Neuroscientist Cynthia Moss and colleagues from around the world will design experiments to test animal cognition
illustration of memory matching card game, featuring pandemic-themed cards such as hand sanitizer and a cocktail
Cognitive Psychology
Oh, Memories, Where Art Thou?
Published April 4, 2022
Recent research highlights the pandemic's impact on our perception of time and memory. Can we jumpstart new memories, or is this shift permanent?
Purple banana
Cognitive neuroscience
Blind people can't see color but understand it the same way as sighted people
Published Aug 17, 2021
Experiments with blind and sighted people upend adage that blind people lack deep knowledge of visual phenomena
A curious baby points at an object
Cognitive science
Study: The most curious babies become the most curious toddlers
Published June 28, 2021
Infants' responses to surprising events like magic tricks are linked to later cognitive ability, researchers find
Mime leans on an invisible box
Perception
Mimes help us 'see' objects that don't exist
Published April 5, 2021 Video
Researchers use mime techniques to better understand vision and perception, finding that implied objects and surfaces such as walls or boxes can be 'seen' even when they don't exist
Graphic of brain activity
Neuroscience
This is your brain on code
Published Dec 17, 2020
Using fMRI scans of computer programmers as they read code, researchers have discovered that the complex language processing takes place in the left hemisphere in a part of the brain dedicated to logical reasoning