Artificial Intelligence
AI Can Re-create What You See from a Brain Scan
Image-generating AI is getting better at re-creating what people are looking at from their fMRI data. But this isn’t mind reading—yet
Cognition3949 articles archived since 1845
Cognition
Babies Are Born with an Innate Number Sense
Plato was right: newborns do math
Cognition
What Causes Déjà Vu?
Does this all feel a little familiar? Called déjà vu, that sensation may be your brain correcting its own errors
Cognition
Humans Can Correctly Guess the Meaning of Chimp Gestures
A new finding that humans can correctly interpret the gestures of chimps and bonobos adds to growing research that suggests that human language may have evolved from a dictionary of hand and body signals...
Cognition
Readers Respond to the June 2022 Issue
Letters to the editor for the June 2022 issue of Scientific American
Cognition
Good (and Bad) Ways to Help a Dog Afraid of Fireworks
You are more important than you think
Cognition
Tired Adults May Learn Language like Children Do
Lowered conscious reasoning can aid sound-pattern recognition
Cognition
People Who Jump to Conclusions Show Other Kinds of Thinking Errors
Belief in conspiracy theories and overconfidence are two tendencies linked to hasty thinking
Cognition
Can Lab-Grown Brains Become Conscious?
A handful of experiments are raising questions about whether clumps of cells and disembodied brains could be sentient and how scientists would know if they were
Cognition
What Will 2022 Bring in the Way of Misinformation on Social Media? 3 Experts Weigh In
The one-year anniversary of the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol is raising concerns about falsehoods that increase the risk of repeat events
Mental Health
Mindfulness Can Improve Your Attention and Health
A focus on the present, dubbed “mindfulness,” can make you happier and healthier. Training to deepen your immersion in the moment works by improving attention
Cognition
What Causes Alcohol-Induced Blackouts?
In search of answers, a neurobiologist looks to rodents
Cognition
Infants as Young as Two Months May Be Able to Detect Faces and Scenes
Baby-brain-scanning experiments fuel the debate over whether humans are born with these abilities
Cognition
The Brain Guesses What Word Comes Ne-
Like some AI systems, the organ of thought appears to predict what word follows another to coax meaning from language
Cognition
The Educational Power—and the Limits—of Personalized Children’s Books
Reading materials individually tailored to young people can boost engagement and learning, but discerning what works is an ongoing challenge
Cognition
Quantum Mechanics, Plato’s Cave and the Blind Piranha
Can we ever really know the world?
Cognition
Navigating a Virtual World Helped Older Adults’ Memory
A virtual-reality game may boost one long-term memory measure
Cognition
Pupil Size Is a Marker of Intelligence
There is a surprising correlation between baseline pupil size and several measures of cognitive ability
Cognition
Our Memory Is Even Better Than Experts Thought
In some respects, memory is poor. In others, it is astonishingly good
Cognition
You Don’t Have to Start Young to Be a Great Musician
A new study refutes the idea that there is a critical learning period in childhood
