• Unknown unknowns

    Open Forum     |      October 12, 2024

    New experimental data support the idea that people tend to assume the information they have is adequate to comprehend a given situation, without considering that they might be lacking key information.

  • Understanding teen decision making

    Sarah Tashjian     |      September 23, 2024

    Teenagers are often characterised as risk-taking and impulsive with poor decision-making skills, but those traits are actually a good thing.

  • The neuroscience of voting

    Matt Qvortrup     |      June 9, 2024

    The current British election campaign highlights the different factors which influence people’s votes, including fundamental aspects of our brain function.

  • No time to think

    Ricardo Correia     |      June 2, 2024

    The frantic pace of modern life is damaging our innate sense of time, but getting out into the natural world can help us heal it.

  • You can teach old dogs new tricks

    Stephen Badham     |      May 3, 2024

    Employers – and the general public – often assume young people are smarter, or at least quicker to learn, than older people, but new research suggests that cognitive differences between the old and young have been tapering off over time.

  • The dress and the rabbit

    Alan Stevenson     |      April 25, 2024

    Optical illusions and ambiguous pictures are more than parlour puzzles but can open our eyes to the scientific study of human perception and the role our brains play in shaping what we think we see.

  • Debunking Dunning-Kruger

    Eric Gaze     |      April 23, 2024

    The Dunning-Kruger effect – that unqualified people over-estimate their ability – is often quoted and uncritically cited, but may be misleading, if not entirely untrue.

  • Back on the couch

    Nick Haslam     |      April 5, 2024

    Writer and psychotherapist Adam Phillips is often hailed as one of the world’s great essayists. His new book – exploring the topic of giving up, among other things – is both erudite and slippery.

  • Remembering Daniel Kahneman

    Daniel Read     |      April 4, 2024

    Daniel Kahneman’s passing at 90 years old leaves a major gap in the field of behavioural science and the wider intellectual community.

  • Predicting the present

    Open Forum     |      March 6, 2024

    How do the brains of cricketers, racing drivers and tennis players react so quickly to events in the heat of competition? Scientists may now have more clues.

  • Trust your instincts

    Alan Stevenson     |      February 29, 2024

    We’re surrounded by technology and spend decades honing our intellects at school and university but intuition – the ability to understand something without conscious reasoning – remains a powerful force in our lives, and can sometimes even be a life saver.

  • The twin dilemma

    Open Forum     |      February 16, 2024

    A twin study has revealed the complex interplay between genetics and environment in how our brains navigate emotional and cognitive tasks.