Language model AIs are smooth talkers, but you shouldn’t rely on them to make important decisions. That’s because they have trouble telling the difference between a gain and a loss.
Why do we have such different and changing tastes? Why do we love what others hate, and vice versa? How is it possible to stop liking something we used to love, or vice versa?
Some scientists believe the ‘free energy principle’ can explain the behaviour of all living things – but others say it paints the world with too broad a brush to be useful.
Vaccine hesitancy is often met with one of two responses: Ridicule, or factual information. Both assume a failure of reason, but human behaviour is more complex than reason, so both responses fail.
Research shows that people with more flow in their lives had a higher sense of well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic. Scientists are beginning to explore what happens in the brain during flow.
Cognitive shortcuts help you efficiently move through a complicated world. But they come with an unwelcome side effect: Facts aren’t necessarily enough to change your mind.
Thinking of SARS-CoV-2 as an invisible enemy with an evil personality and humanlike motivations is a natural offshoot of the way people evolved to anthropomorphize so as not to overlook threats.
People have changed over time, growing ever more distant and isolated from others – while at the same time finding new ways and technologies that let individuals connect and feel with others.
Is making sense of a story more important than getting at its truth? Looking at the treatment of myth in ancient Greece may help us navigate what is true, and whether that matters.
A quirk of psychology that affects the way people learn from others may have helped unlock the complicated technologies and rituals that human culture hinges on.
We fall sway to fake news because it grabs our attention through outlandish claims, suggests false memories and contains appeals to our emotions that align with our politics.
There are reasons to be skeptical, of both the quality of the evidence presented so far and the questionable assumptions that underlie claims of improved cognitive function after brain training.
Sports fans see it all the time: two people arguing about a split-second difference in who did what. New research suggests human beings have a bias to perceive their own actions as happening sooner.