Our knack for language helps us structure our thinking. Yet the ability to wax poetic about trinkets, tools or traits may not be necessary to think about them abstractly, as was once suspected. A ...

Many of the long term goals people strive for -- like losing weight -- require us to use self-control and forgo immediate gratification. And yet denying our immediate desires in order to reap future ...

A recurring theme in this blog is that self-control is hard. Tempting short-term goals often get in our way when we want to achieve long-term goals. If you are trying to lose weight, then it is not ...

More non-human animals may be capable of abstract thought than previously known, with profound implications for the evolution of human intelligence and the stuff that separates homo sapiens from other ...

The capacity for abstract thinking does not belong to humans alone, as studies of other vertebrates, such as primates, pigeons and dolphins, have shown. Now new research indicates that invertebrates, ...

Parents, does your 18-month-old seem wise beyond her years? Science says you're not fooling yourself. Very small children can reason abstractly, researchers say, and are able to infer the ...

In his new book Magic Words: What to Say to Get Your Way, Jonah Berger, author and marketing professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, talks about the hidden science behind ...

Alyse Rosner is grappling with the question of how to make an abstract painting reflect both the personal and collective. Alyse Rosner, "A Quieter Battle" (2021), wax and acrylic on raw canvas, signed ...

“Character is on the ballot this time around. The American character is on the ballot. Not what Donald Trump is spewing out…that’s not who we are as a nation. Everyone in this country is entitled to ...

In her January Scientific American piece titled "What Animals Know about Where Babies Come From," anthropologist Holly Dunsworth makes a convincing case that despite popular assumptions to the ...

Caution is always warranted in teasing apart these cognitive questions, yet there's convincing evidence that some animals reason abstractly under some circumstances (some other examples regarding ...