Klunk and colleagues have, perhaps, taken the lead in assessing imperfect synchrony in animal displays. There is much to ponder in their new study: “Imperfect Synchrony in Animal Displays: Why Does It Occur and What Is the True Role of Leadership?” Daniela M. Perez, Cristian L. Klunk, and Sabrina B.L. Araujo, Philosophical Transactions of the […]
In this video, a person called “the Ostrich Whisperer” appears to display an intimate knowledge of how ostriches behave towards humans: One can wonder many things about the Ostrich Whisperer’s knowledge. One can wonder how it compares with the knowledge reported in the study “Courtship Behaviour of Ostriches (Struthio camelus) Towards Humans Under Farming […]
Impulsive beliefs that someone has discovered a switch, in the brain, to control impulsive behavior! Such beliefs have impelled many scientists (professional, amateur, and imagined) to report that they have maybe, perhaps, almost-certainly, nearly-without-doubt discovered a switch, in the brain, to control impulsive behavior. A newly published study suggests that a team of scientists has […]
Dogs are usually considered to be trustworthy pets, but a research (or perhaps research-like) study sheds light on dogs’ ability to use deceptive-like (ore perhaps deceptive) behaviour to get their way. The article “Deceptive-like behaviour in dogs” explains an experiment where …dogs had the chance to choose, in the presence of either a cooperative or […]
Technology has moved beyond anything B.F. Skinner had available when he did his imaginative pigeon-behavior experiments. This study tells of the latest advance: “A Kinect-based system for automatic recording of some pigeon behaviors,” Damian M. Lyons , James S. MacDonall, Kelly M. Cunningham, Behavior Research Methods, December 2015, Volume 47, Issue 4, pp 1044-1054. (Thanks to Andrew Caines […]
The laboratory facility that long ago won honors for doing research and development on the so-called “gay bomb” is casting a skeptical eye at widespread claims about oxytocin, a substance some people call “the love hormone”. The Neuroskeptic blog reports: A new study offers two reasons to be cautious about some of the claims made for the role of […]
This study required keep, persistent observatory behavior (or behaviour) on the part of the researchers: “Evidence to suggest that nightclubs function as human sexual display grounds,” Colin A. Hendrie [pictured here], Helena D. Mannion and Georgina K. Godfrey, Behaviour, vol. 146, 2009, pp. 1331-1348. (Thanks to Neil Martin for bringing this to our attention.) The […]
Dan Ariely, whose team was awarded the 2008 Ig Nobel Prize in medicine,* is offering an online course — free for everyone — about irrational behavior. Dan is the James B. Duke Professor of Psychology and Behavioral Economics at Duke University and a founding member of the Center for Advanced Hindsight. Some background about the course: […]
Maggie Koerth-Baker profiles, in BoingBoing, the story behind this moving video of how people respond to a stick that moves in ways that seem un-stick-likely. BoingBoing sums it up with the headline “Humans will befriend a stick — as long as it moves properly“: A 2011 paper, by scientists at the University of Calgary, documenting […]
Ig Nobel Prize winner Dan Ariely is teaching a new online course called “A beginner’s guide to irrational behavior.” Perhaps irrationally, it’s free. Ariely and colleagues Rebecca L. Waber, Baba Shiv, and Ziv Carmon were awarded the 2008 Ig Nobel Prize in medicine for demonstrating that high-priced fake medicine is more effective than low-priced fake medicine. [REFERENCE: “Commercial Features of Placebo […]