Perception - Reflectd - bringing psychology studies to life

Why Art Uses These 10 Aesthetic Principles: From a Neuroscience Perspective

Simon Moesgaard — Sun, 30 Aug 2026 08:19:06 +0000

When we stand in front of a painting, a photograph, or a sculpture, something happens. We feel something. But have you ever wondered why a particular piece moves us while another one leaves us feeling nothing? Is art purely shaped by culture and the times we live in? Or is there something deeper in our […]

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If You Struggle With Controlling Your Attention, Goal Reminders Can Help You, Experiment Shows

Simon Moesgaard — Tue, 31 Jan 2023 12:50:34 +0000

A new experiment (using a so-called Stroop test) finds that goal reminders help people solve a task that requires both working memory capacity and attentional control. Goal reminders simply help people keep a goal present in their minds while performing a task. The study finds that goal reminders provide long-lasting and cumulative benefits for people […]

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Negativity Bias: Why Negative Things Stand Out

Simon Moesgaard — Wed, 30 Aug 2017 19:37:46 +0000

Positive thinking can feel like a job to do, while negative thinking seems to happen more automatically. In fact, this is true at a very fundamental level of the brain, studies show. It is called the negativity bias. Researchers have documented the negativity bias in various experiments over the years, and it seems to affect all aspects of […]

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Do You Have a Fixed or a Growth Mindset? Begin to Focus on Growth and Achieve Success

Simon Moesgaard — Fri, 14 Mar 2014 14:15:53 +0000

1. What is the difference between a fixed and a growth mindset? If people have a fixed mindset, they view their abilities as a fixed entity. They tend to view their failures as a consequence of their insufficient abilities to perform well. People interpret and understand their experiences through so-called attribution styles. People with a […]

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Study: Smiling Makes You More Attractive

Simon Moesgaard — Tue, 27 Aug 2013 08:18:00 +0000

A study by Golle, Mast & Lobmaier (2013) shows how emotional expressions of happiness influence the judgment of attractiveness. The researchers manipulated faces with computer graphics software to systematically change shape-related attractiveness and happiness, while they kept other facial attributes constant. In this way, the participants saw identical faces that only differed in attractiveness and […]

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Psychology Shows How We Recognize Faces

Simon Moesgaard — Sat, 17 Aug 2013 11:07:00 +0000

Whenever we perceive another person, the first things we notice are very general features like gender and age, according to the feature theory of face perception. After having identified a person’s gender and age, we then focus on facial expressions in order to make inferences about his or her identity so that we are able […]

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How We Perceive Depth (Monucular and Binocular Depth Cues)

Simon Moesgaard — Sat, 17 Aug 2013 09:35:00 +0000

The eye (i.e., the retina) receives sensory input in only two dimensions (length and width). It is therefore the brain’s task to make these cues into a three-dimensional perception. This task is conducted by the use of monocular (one eye) depth cues and binocular (both eyes) depth cues. Here is a list of the depth […]

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How The Brain Makes Sense of Sensory Stimuli: Bottom-Up and Top-Down Processing

Simon Moesgaard — Fri, 16 Aug 2013 21:14:00 +0000

To create our perceptions, the brain makes use of two processing systems, namely the bottom-up and the top-down processing system. Bottom-up processing happens when we combine a number of stimuli into a single, unified perception. Top-down processing happens when we make sense of the sensory information that was produced by the bottom-up process. We interpret […]

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Actor-Observer Bias: Why We Blame Other People Instead of Ourselves

Simon Moesgaard — Fri, 10 May 2013 09:22:00 +0000

The actor-observer bias is the tendency that people view their own actions as caused by the situational context, while others’ actions are seen as caused by personality or stable dispositions. In other words, we judge others based on what we see, but ourselves based on what we think and feel. It is an important social bias […]

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