Scott Alexander examines the effectiveness of education by analyzing knowledge retention, questioning the value of schooling beyond basic skills.

Scott Alexander investigates the claim that children learn languages faster than adults, finding it partially true but more nuanced than commonly believed.

Scott Alexander analyzes a study showing Concerta improves ADHD children's attention but not their learning, and speculates on the reasons behind this unexpected result.

A review of Stanislas Dehaene's 'Consciousness and the Brain', discussing scientific findings on consciousness and their implications.

Scott Alexander examines the relationship between handedness, authoritarianism, and cognitive flexibility, finding unexpected results that contradict a recent study.

Scott Alexander investigates the prevalence of Hallucinogen Persisting Perceptual Disorder (HPPD) and explores potential connections between perception, cognition, and belief in supernatural phenomena.

The post explores the diametrical model of autism and schizophrenia, suggesting they represent opposite ends of a spectrum from mechanistic to mentalistic cognition.

Scott reviews psychological research showing that people don't have introspective access to their own mental processes and instead guess at their reasons for behavior in the same way they would guess at others' motivations.

Scott explains the Implicit Association Test (IAT), which measures unconscious associations by testing reaction times when categorizing concepts, and argues it's better understood as measuring distances in conceptual space rather than as a simple test for prejudice.