82 checked facts

Cognition

Everything on this site about cognition — each one naming the study behind it.

You struggle to remember joyful moments while feeling sad.
Mood-congruent memory is the phenomenon where your current emotional state dictates the accessibility of your past mem…
You see patterns that do not actually exist.
Humans are prone to perceiving relationships between two independent events because they share a superficial similarit…
Your ability to make good choices erodes by evening.
Decision fatigue suggests that quality of judgment declines after repeated choices, a phenomenon famously illustrated …
You believe you possess more talent than the average.
The better-than-average effect is a widespread cognitive bias where individuals rate their abilities as superior to th…
You assume you understand everyday objects better than you do.
The illusion of explanatory depth reveals that people believe they understand complex systems until asked to explain t…
You do not know why you reached that conclusion.
The confabulation effect occurs when you provide a logical reason for an action that was actually caused by a subconsc…
Your brain fills in gaps with events that never happened.
A 1996 study found that simply imagining a past event increases the participant's confidence that the event actually o…
You think your personal memories are objectively accurate.
Source monitoring errors lead you to misattribute the origin of your memories.…
You will always underestimate the time a task takes.
People consistently predict they will complete tasks faster than they actually do.…
Your brain is programmed to ignore the middle.
The serial position effect was first identified and described by Hermann Ebbinghaus in 1885.…
You remember information better when it relates to yourself.
A 1977 study found that words are recalled far more accurately if they are processed in relation to one's own traits.…
You trust information more when it is easier read.
A 2008 study found that simple, easy-to-read fonts make statements seem more factual and credible.…
You eventually believe the lies you heard before.
The persuasive power of a message can increase over time, even if the source was initially discredited.…
Your performance drops when you fear confirming a stereotype.
The awareness of a negative stereotype regarding your group can cause an involuntary decline in performance.…
You ignore information that contradicts your existing world view.
Confirmation bias is the tendency to search for, interpret, and recall information in a way that aligns with your pre-…
You accept illogical arguments if the conclusion feels true.
Belief bias is the tendency to judge the strength of an argument based on the believability of its conclusion rather t…
You remember information best when you connect it to yourself.
The self-reference effect is the tendency for people to encode information differently when it is related to themselve…
You remember the core meaning but lose the exact words.
The verbatim effect states that you are much more likely to remember the meaning of a sentence than the specific words…
You expect patterns where there is only randomness.
The gambler's fallacy is a well-established cognitive bias defined as the belief that past independent events influenc…
You cannot imagine a world where you do not know this.
Once you possess information, you find it nearly impossible to simulate the mindset of someone who lacks it.…
You judge your own actions by intent, but others' by outcomes.
The actor-observer asymmetry was a widely cited hypothesis, but it has failed to replicate in broad meta-analyses.…
You automatically assume that fluent speech equals high intelligence.
A 2006 study found that writers who use complex, unnecessary words are perceived as less intelligent.…
You ignore past evidence when predicting your future speed.
The planning fallacy is the tendency to underestimate the time, costs, and risks of future actions, regardless of past…
Your brain prioritizes negative news over positive feedback.
Negativity bias dictates that, across a variety of domains, negative information is processed more deeply and remember…
Your ability to make sound choices depletes throughout the day.
While the 2011 Danziger study identified a correlation between judicial rulings and meal breaks, the 'decision fatigue…
You no longer remember information, only where to find it.
The 'Google effect' causes your brain to offload knowledge to external storage, leading to poorer recall of the inform…
You ignore the context while fixating on the outcome.
Focalism causes you to overestimate how much a single event will influence your future happiness.…
Evidence against your belief makes you hold tighter.
Belief perseverance is the cognitive tendency to maintain a position even when the evidence supporting it has been cle…
You think of future plans in impossible terms.
Construal level theory explains that the more distant an event is, the more abstractly you represent it.…
You might be misreading your fear as attraction.
The misattribution of arousal occurs when your brain misidentifies the source of physiological excitement.…
You work significantly faster as you approach a goal.
The goal gradient effect shows that the closer you are to finishing a task, the more effort you invest to complete it.…
You remember facts better if you explain them yourself.
The generation effect demonstrates that information is better retained when you produce it from your own mind.…
You assign human traits to inanimate geometry.
In a 1944 study, viewers who watched an animation of shapes moving around a box almost universally described the shape…
Your brain confuses ease of processing with actual truth.
The fluency heuristic leads people to believe that information is true simply because it is easy to understand or reca…
You judge the quality of a choice by its outcome.
Outcome bias is the tendency to evaluate the intelligence of a decision based on the final result rather than the qual…
You mistakenly believe others think exactly like you do.
The false consensus effect is the cognitive bias where you overestimate the extent to which your opinions and habits a…
You are physically unable to forget what you already know.
Once you learn a piece of information, you consistently overestimate others' ability to guess it.…
Your self-control is exhausted by simple mental math.
In a 1999 study, participants who were asked to memorize a seven-digit number were about 1.5 times more likely to choo…
You believe you control events that are entirely random.
A 1975 study showed that people overestimate their chances of winning a game of pure luck if they have performed a per…
You only remember the beginning and the end.
Ebbinghaus (1885) identified the serial position effect, but the explanation attributing it to the interaction between…
Anxiety about performance can lower your actual results.
A 1995 study found that black students performed worse on tests when reminded of negative stereotypes about their inte…
You interpret neutral social interactions as deliberate attacks.
A 1980 study found that highly aggressive individuals are significantly more likely to assume others act with harmful …
You ignore information that challenges your existing beliefs.
A 1979 study found that participants discounted evidence that contradicted their opinions while accepting flawed evide…
You remember information better when it relates to you.
A 1977 study showed that participants recalled adjectives much better when asked if they described themselves.…
You remember information better if you create it yourself.
A 1978 study demonstrated that participants remembered words better when they generated them rather than simply readin…
You judge your actions by circumstances but others by character.
Research in the 1970s proposed an actor-observer asymmetry in attribution, though modern meta-analyses indicate this e…
You find it impossible to ignore what you know.
In Elizabeth Newton's 1990 study, tappers were unable to predict how difficult it would be for listeners to identify a…
You over-allocate resources to eliminate a minor, symbolic risk.
The zero-risk bias leads people to prefer the complete elimination of a small risk over a greater total reduction in r…
You like things more simply because you have seen them.
The mere exposure effect is the tendency to develop a preference for stimuli merely because you are familiar with them…
You assume generic descriptions apply specifically to you.
The phenomenon is known as the Forer effect or the fallacy of personal validation, while the term 'Barnum effect' was …
You stop remembering facts you know are stored digitally.
The Google effect shows that you are less likely to remember information if you believe it is easily accessible online…
You believe past events were more predictable than they were.
Hindsight bias causes you to view historical outcomes as inevitable despite the inherent uncertainty of the time.…
You find statements more true if they simply rhyme.
Rhyming statements are processed as more accurate and truthful than non-rhyming statements.…
You only clearly remember the beginning and the end.
Information presented at the start and conclusion of a list is significantly better retained.…
You selectively interpret facts to protect your existing worldview.
A 1979 study found that participants shown balanced evidence on capital punishment were convinced their original stanc…
Your brain shuts down for half a second after focusing.
Participants show significantly reduced performance in detecting a second target when it appears 200 to 500 millisecon…
You believe you understand how a simple zipper works.
A 2002 study showed that people consistently overestimate their grasp of complex systems until they are forced to expl…
You hold onto opinions even after being disproven.
A 1975 study showed that once an initial belief is formed, it remains influential even after the evidence supporting i…
Your brain ignores facts that contradict your beliefs.
Motivated reasoning and biased assimilation lead people to evaluate contradictory evidence more critically than suppor…
You notice things more frequently after learning about them.
The frequency illusion occurs when a new piece of information you recently learned suddenly seems to appear everywhere…
You perceive members of other groups as all identical.
Outgroup homogeneity is the tendency to see individuals in other groups as having fewer unique traits than people in y…
You find it impossible to ignore what you already know.
The curse of knowledge causes you to overestimate how well others understand what you are explaining.…
You defend your beliefs after seeing contrary data.
The 'backfire effect' refers to a proposed psychological phenomenon where contrary evidence strengthens existing belie…
You believe you are more observant than you are.
A 1998 study found that a significant portion of observers failed to detect changes in a person during a real-world in…
You are more likely to lie for a small reward.
A 1959 study showed that people are more willing to perform a dull task for a small incentive if they convince themsel…
If it sounds familiar, you assume it is true.
A 2015 study found that statements were rated as more accurate if they had been heard previously, even when the source…
Your ability to make sound decisions erodes throughout the day.
A 2011 study of over 1,000 judicial rulings found that parole boards were significantly more likely to grant favorable…
You retroactively invent reasons to prefer your choice.
A 2007 study found that people misremember the features of rejected options to make their chosen one seem superior.…
Nothing is as important as you think it is.
People misjudge the long-term impact of life events because they focus too heavily on them at the moment.…
You struggle to solve problems you have used before.
Functional fixedness is a cognitive bias where you become unable to see an object as having any function other than it…
You try to suppress thoughts and make them louder.
The 'ironic process theory' suggests that the effort to suppress a specific thought makes it more cognitively accessib…
The more you try not to think, the more.
A 1994 study revealed that instructions to suppress a specific thought result in that thought becoming more cognitivel…
A repeated claim eventually feels like a known truth.
A 2015 study found that even clearly false headlines are rated as more accurate simply because they have been seen bef…
You believe the world is fundamentally fair to everyone.
A 1966 study demonstrated that people will blame victims for their own misfortune to maintain the belief that people g…
You mistake your own point of view for objective reality.
Research indicates that people assume their view of the world is based on unbiased information, while those who disagr…
You believe generic personality descriptions are uniquely about you.
A 1948 study found that when individuals are given a vague, personality assessment, they overwhelmingly rate it as acc…
You cannot imagine what it is like not knowing.
A 1990 study by Elizabeth Newton found that individuals possess a 'curse of knowledge' that makes them systematically …
You only vividly remember the beginning and the end.
A 1962 experiment confirmed that memory recall is highest for items at the start and end of a list, with a significant…
Common tools often become invisible when you need new uses.
A 1945 study found that participants struggled to solve problems when the necessary tools were already being used for …
We spend more mental energy processing bad news than good.
A 2001 review concluded that humans consistently pay more attention to, and retain, negative information over positive…
Ease of memory leads us to overestimate rare events.
A 1973 study showed that people judge the frequency of an event by how easily they can recall examples from memory.…
We consistently assume that others think like we do.
A 1977 study revealed that people are significantly more likely to assume others share their own beliefs and habits th…