Abstract There are three main types of number used in modern, industrialized societies. Cardinals count sets (e.g., people, objects) and quantify elements of conventional scales (e.g., money, distance), ordinals index positions in ordered sequences (e.g., years, pages), and nominals serve as unique identifiers (e.g., telephone numbers, player numbers). Many studies that have cited number frequencies […]

The brain exhibits a remarkable ability to learn and execute context-appropriate behaviors. How it achieves such flexibility, without sacrificing learning efficiency, is an important open question. Neuroscience, psychology, and engineering suggest that reusing and repurposing computations are part of the answer. Here, we review evidence that thalamocortical architectures may have evolved to facilitate these objectives […]

Abstract When people make decisions, they act in a way that is either automatic (“rote”), or more thoughtful (“reflective”). But do people notice when others are behaving in a rote way, and do they care? We examine the detection of rote behavior and its consequences in U.S. adults, focusing specifically on pedagogy and learning. We […]