Some writers have proposed intellectual personality types based on animals. Illustration from the Kalīla wa-Dimna, a book of fables, produced in Egypt between 1500-1699. Image via the Library of Congress (link).
What type of thinker was Dostoevsky? What about Darwin? Some have classified intellectual personality in terms of animals—ants, spiders, foxes, frogs, and more.
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In many cultures, pointing to rainbows was taboo, probably because it was considered an aggressive act toward a sacred, awesome entity. Detail from a 19th century painting (source).
Around the world and across the centuries, humans have considered pointing to be an aggressive act. But few seem to have asked the obvious question: Why?
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A portrait of Anton Chekhov (1860–1904), painted by Osip Braz in 1898.
Anton Chekhov famously urged writers to leave extraneous elements out of their novels and plays. This “Chekhov’s gun” principle may or may not be good advice for writers of fiction, but it’s indispensable advice for academics.
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The head nod is one of our most commonly used gestural signals, but remarkably few researchers have tried to explain its origins. How did this simple up-and-down movement come to mean ‘yes’?
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The black triggerfish of the Hawaiian Islands. Illustration by A. H. Baldwin (1905-6) (source).
Among the many conceptual tools used by traditional Micronesian navigators was the triggerfish—a powerful and flexible mnemonic for remembering marine geography.
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A cup of Tibetan tea. Cups of tea and other units of consumption were once widely used as measures of distance. Photo: 麦叶叶 (source).
Cups of tea, cigarettes, and coconuts used to serve as measures of distance. These and other consumption-based units attest to a strategy—using time to measure space—that was once pervasive. Arguably, it still is.
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Two unidentified Maori women performing a hongi greeting. Image taken circa 1909 by William Archer Price. Price Collection, Alexander Turnbull Library
Smell used to play a much more obvious role in human greeting rituals. What happened?
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A member of the Blemmyes, a nomadic tribe who—according to myth—were headless but had faces on their chests. Detail from a 1556 map by Guillaume Le Testu (link).
When you look across the world’s languages, terms for body parts often involve reference to other body parts. What motivates this peculiar pattern?
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A portrait of the author as a young scholar.
Ten tips for young scholars on doing good work (and living well at the same time).
Read MoreAnatomical terms are some of the most wide-ranging words of all. They show up in language about shape, space, time, measurement, numbers, emotions, and more.
Read MoreAn analogy with “Pascal’s wager” makes it clear why researchers interested in human behavior should adopt a diversity stance.
Read MoreFive explanations for an everyday, enigmatic gesture.
Read MoreIn the summer of 2009, I joined a research trip to Papua New Guinea. Our destination was the Yupno valley, a high nook in the Finisterre Range, one of countless similar nooks in the country's remote, rumpled interior. The trip was jointly led by Jürg Wassmann, an anthropologist at the University of Heidelberg, and Rafael Núñez, my advisor in the Department of Cognitive Science at UCSD, where I was getting my PhD. I bought my first digital SLR for the trip. Here are some of the portraits I took with it.
(all images © Kensy Cooperrider)
Men socializing at the fireplace. Gua, 2009.
Boys with a home-made model airplane. Gua, 2009.
Two men at fireside. Gua, 2009.
A man explains a timeline of Yupno history, recently scratched into the dirt. Gua, 2009.
Children stoke a fire at our residence. Gua, 2009.
Boys on a hillside in the village center, with a netbag of sweet potatoes. Gua, 2009.
The elementary school teacher at his desk. Gua, 2009.
Boy resting on a railing outside our residence. Gua, 2009.
Men gather around the grass airstrip, waiting for a plane to come in. Teptep, 2009.
An ancient analogy for time and why it endures.
Read MoreA common way we make sense of stories is by visualizing their structure.
Read MoreIn a 1977 paper, a "human ethologist" described some of the greeting forms used in Papua New Guinea.
Read MoreIt may not be the most typical use of numbers, but it's certainly a pervasive one.
Read MoreOn a commonplace but curious phenomenon: metaphors that use one timescale to express something about another.
Read MoreHow a cognitive bias shows up in our superstitions.
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