We find the correlation of two jointly distributed random variables connected with a coin tossing experiment. The marginal distributions are binomial and negative binomial.

Many theories predict the presence of interactive effects involving information represented by distinct cognitive processes in speech production. There is considerably less agreement regarding the precise cognitive mechanisms that underlie these interactive effects. For example, are they driven by purely production-internal mechanisms (e.g., Dell,…

Simple "box spectroscopes" are not new. Different methods of building them at home using cheap diffraction gratings have been described. However, their use has often been confined to looking at street lights, discharge tubes, and enjoying the beautiful spectra of various lamps. Construction of the box spectroscope usually involves a narrow slit…

Consider a problem of sliding blocks, one stacked atop the other, resting on a frictionless table. If the bottom block is pulled horizontally, nature makes a choice: if the applied force is small, static friction between the blocks accelerates the blocks together, but with a large force the blocks slide apart. In that case, kinetic friction still…

The use of electronic instrumentation to monitor physiological function in conscious research animals and humans has become routine. Beyond basic research, animal studies using these methods are required by government regulatory agencies worldwide before human testing of potential new drugs. Living, as we do, in an age of miniaturized high-tech…

The purpose of this investigation was to determine if three Western species of the Panax, Lycium, and Astragalus genera had antibacterial and/or antioxidant properties, and how their properties compared to Eastern herbs in the same genera. The group hypothesized that when compared, the corresponding herbs would have identical antibacterial and…

Under certain conditions, statistical evidence is more persuasive than anecdotal evidence in supporting a claim about the probability that a certain event will occur. In three experiments, it is shown that the type of argument is an important condition in this respect. If the evidence is part of an argument by generalization, statistical evidence…

This paper investigates the role of static and dynamic attributes for the animate-inanimate distinction in category-based reasoning of 7-month-olds. Three experiments tested infants' responses to movement events involving an unfamiliar animal and a ball. When either the animal or the ball showed self-initiated irregular movements (Experiment 1),…

Four experiments were conducted to investigate how the cognitive control of memory retrieval selects particular qualitative characteristics as a consequence of instantiating a retrieval mode for recognition memory. Adapting the memory for foils paradigm from Jacoby, Shimizu, Daniels, and Rhodes (Jacoby, L. L., Shimizu, Y., Daniels, K. A., &…

The present study investigated how auditory processing is modulated by expectations for time and pitch by analyzing reaction times and event-related potentials (ERPs). In two experiments, tone sequences were presented to the participants, who had to discriminate whether the last tone of the sequence contained a short gap or was continuous…

The experiments reported here investigated the development of a fundamental component of cognition: to recognize and generalize abstract relations. Infants were presented with simple rule-governed patterned sequences of visual shapes (ABB, AAB, and ABA) that could be discriminated from differences in the position of the repeated element (late,…

Event-related potentials and eye tracking were used to investigate the nature of priming effects in sentence comprehension. Participants read 2 sentences (a prime sentence and a target sentence), both of which had a difficult and ambiguous sentence structure. The prime and target sentences contained either the same verb or verbs that were very…

This article traces the history of obedience experiments that have used the Milgram paradigm. It begins with Stanley Milgram's graduate education, showing how some aspects of that experience laid the groundwork for the obedience experiments. It then identifies three factors that led Milgram to study obedience. The underlying principles or messages…

Books I and III of Newton's "Principia" develop Newton's dynamical theory and show how it explains a number of celestial phenomena. Book II has received little attention from historians or educators because it does not play a major role in Newton's argument. However, it is in Book II that we see most clearly Newton both as a theoretician and an…

Research has found that children possess a broad bias in favor of teleological--or purpose-based--explanations of natural phenomena. The current two experiments explored whether adults implicitly possess a similar bias. In Study 1, undergraduates judged a series of statements as "good" (i.e., correct) or "bad" (i.e., incorrect) explanations for…