Remember When We Couldn't See the Women?

Do we see things better when we know grammar?

Language affects perception. But how? Recent findings (Boutonnet & Lupyan, 2015; Bocanegra, Poletiek & Zwaan, submitted) suggest a dissociation between perception that is mediated as compared to not mediated by language. One explanation is that language –that is combinatorial in naturestresses the separate features of objects. We investigated the effect of combinatorial (two words) and non-comb...

As we may remember

How we remember what we can do

According to the motor simulation theory, the knowledge we possess of what we can do is based on simulation mechanisms triggered by an off-line activation of the brain areas involved in motor control. Action capabilities memory does not work by storing some content, but consists in the capacity, rooted in sensory-motor systems, to reenact off-line action sequences exhibiting the range of our po...

I Know It When I See It: The Challenges of Addressing Corruption in Health Systems; Comment on “We Need to Talk About Corruption in Health Systems”

In this commentary, I argue that corruption in health systems is a critical and legitimate area for research in order to strengthen health policy goals. This rationale is based partly on citizen demand for more accountable and transparent health systems, along with the fact that the poor and vulnerable suffer the most from the presence of corruption in health systems. W...

When and Why We See Victims as Responsible

Why do victims sometimes receive sympathy for their suffering and at other times scorn and blame? Here we show a powerful role for moral values in attitudes toward victims. We measured moral values associated with unconditionally prohibiting harm (“individualizing values”) versus moral values associated with prohibiting behavior that destabilizes groups and relationships (“binding values”: loya...