cognition

Quoted: IN “Oryx and Crake,” Margaret Atwood’s novel about humanity’s final days on earth, a boy named Jimmy becomes obsessed with Alex, an African gray parrot with extraordinary cognitive and linguistic skills.

Atwood based her parrot on one that died recently. But the real Alex was no slouch...

Quoted: “Want a nut!” Alex demanded. The interview was over. “Want a nut!” he repeated. “Nnn ... uh ... tuh.” Dr. Pepperberg was flabbergasted. “Not only could you imagine him thinking, ‘Hey, stupid, do I have to spell it for you?’ ” she said. “This was in a sense his way of saying to us, ‘I know where you’re headed! Let’s get on with it.’ ”

I read about the "Endowment Effect" recently in Harvard Business Review. It's also useful in explaining how people decide to switch (or not switch) from an existing service.

Quoted: This is the tendency for people to value something more as soon as they own it. For example, if you own a certain t-shirt, you will place a higher price on it than a tshirt that you don’t own. Most economists believe that you will be willing to sell something for the same price you paid to receive it, but if this bias is real (and there is some debate), then the simple act of owning an object will inflate the price. Perhaps because the cost of choosing is valuable in itself. Perhaps because of the effort involved in finding it in the first place, and having to find it again if you wanted it again. Perhaps because of a sense of scarcity (what if you can’t repurchase the item you just sold for the same price). Whatever the cause, it seems like a bias that encourages inflation… and therefore rewards buying early, and holding on to what you have.

Of sunken losses, cognitive dissonance, and forgiveness

Quoted: Self-deception proves itself to be more powerful than deception

Redot from ChrisWei

Quoted: People who believe they have lived past lives as, say, Indian princesses or battlefield commanders are more likely to make certain types of memory errors, according to a new study.

Experts aren't born, they're made.

Quoted: EFFORTFUL STUDY is the key to achieving success in chess, classical music, soccer and many other fields. New research has indicated that motivation is a more important factor than innate ability.

Quoted: Through controlled experiments, Sonja Lyubomirsky explores ways to beat the genetic set point for happiness. Staying in high spirits, she finds, is hard work

We're wired to daydream. It's the SETI at home program in our head.

Quoted: New study finds a default network of cortical regions, active when the brain is unoccupied, may generate the random thoughts of a wandering mind.

Quoted: Neuroscientists for the first time have identified regions of the brain involved in envisioning future events.