We develop a generic iterative map model of coupled oscillators based on simple physical processes common to many such systems. The model allows us to understand, from a unified perspective, the range of different outcomes reported for experiments by Huygens and modern realizations of his two coupled clocks.

Many situations require us to generate external cues to support later retrieval from memory. For instance, we create file names in order to cue our memory to a file's contents, and instructors create lecture slides to remember what points to make during classes. We even generate cues for others when we remind friends of shared experiences or send colleagues a computer file that is named in such...

Mother apes—chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans, humans—dote on their babies. And why not? They give birth to an infant after a long gestation and, in most cases, suckle it for years. With humans, however, the job of providing for a juvenile goes on and on. Unlike all other ape babies, ours mature slowly and reach independence late. A mother in a foraging society may give birth every four years o...

more intelligible parts deal, vividly at times, with exchanges between people. A number of passages show valuable insight and at times the author writes clearly, simply and with great power. At other times the content evades understanding; or else it consists of poetic sequences of words. Consider the following: 'My selfbeing, my consciousness and feeling of myself, that taste of myself, of I a...

How does early social experience affect children’s inferences and exploration? Following prior work on children’s reasoning in pedagogical contexts, this study examined U.S. children with less experience in formal schooling and Yucatec-Mayan children whose early social input is predominantly observational. In Experiment 1, U.S. two-year-olds (n=77) showed more restricted exploration of a toy fo...

Both individual experiences and community characteristics influence how much people trust each other. Using individual level data drawn from US localities we find that the strongest factors associated with low trust are: (i) a recent history of traumatic experiences; (ii) belonging to a group that historically felt discriminated against, such as minorities (blacks in particular) and, to a lesse...