Cognitive Science

The latest breakthroughs, innovations, and cool happenings at the cutting edge of the world of cognitive science. Updated daily.

Distinct Brain Regions in Physiological and Pathological Brain Aging

Background: Studying structural brain aging is important to understand age-related pathologies, as well as to identify the early manifestations of the Alzheimer’s disease (AD) continuum. In this study, we investigated the long-term trajectory of physiological and pathological brain aging in a large number of participants ranging from the 50s to over 80 years of age. […]

Published on June 18, 2019

Iranian Herbalists, But Not Cooks, Are Better at Naming Odors Than Laypeople

Abstract Odor naming is enhanced in communities where communication about odors is a central part of daily life (e.g., wine experts, flavorists, and some hunter‐gatherer groups). In this study, we investigated how expert knowledge and daily experience affect the ability to name odors in a group of experts that has not previously been investigated in […]

Published on June 17, 2019

When Stronger Knowledge Slows You Down: Semantic Relatedness Predicts Children’s Co‐Activation of Related Items in a Visual Search Paradigm

Abstract A large literature suggests that the organization of words in semantic memory, reflecting meaningful relations among words and the concepts to which they refer, supports many cognitive processes, including memory encoding and retrieval, word learning, and inferential reasoning. The co‐activation of related items has been proposed as a mechanism by which semantic knowledge influences […]

Published on June 16, 2019