Monique Patenaude

Scientists have been studying curiosity since the 19th century, but combining techniques from several fields now makes it possible for the first time to study it with full scientific rigor, according to the authors of a new paper.

Psychology professor Harry Reis has been awarded the 2015 Career Contribution Award by the Society for Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP). The award honors scholars who have made major theoretical, methodological, or empirical contributions to the field.

Because sound travels much more slowly than light, we can often see distant events before we hear them. That is why we can count the seconds between a lightning flash and its accompanying thunder. Now researchers in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences have shown that our brains can also detect and process sound delays that are too short to be noticed consciously, and that we use that information to fine tune what our eyes see when estimating distance.

Christopher White, associate professor of religion at Vassar College, will give the talk, “Doorways to Invisible Dimensions: Claude Bragdon's Other-Worldly Art, the ‘Fourth Dimension’ and Modern Forms of Enchantment.”

Anthropologist Jessica Cattelino uses ethnographic research in the Everglades to examine the cultural politics of water, and the ways that Everglades residents—including Seminole Indians and non-Seminole farmers and ranchers, water managers, and environmentalists—value water.

Psychologists at the University's Mt. Hope Family Center have found that mothers who experienced more types of maltreatment as children are more critical of their ability to parent successfully.

A new 30-year longitudinal study shows that the quantity of social interactions a person has in their 20s—and the quality of the social relationships they have in their 30s—can benefit his or her well-being later in life. The study participants, now in their 50s, took part in the Rochester-Interaction Record (RIR) study as college students in the 1970s and again as 30-year-olds in the 1980s.

A series of studies with infants 5 to 7 months old has shown that the portion of babies' brains responsible for visual processing responds not just to the presence of visual stimuli, but also to the mere expectation of visual stimuli.

Our brains track moving objects by applying one of the algorithms your phone’s GPS uses, according to researchers at the University of Rochester. This same algorithm also explains why we are fooled by several motion-related optical illusions, including the sudden “break” of baseball’s well known “curveball illusion.”

Children living in low-income households who endure family instability and emotionally distant caregivers are at risk of having impaired cognitive abilities according to new research from Rochester's Mt. Hope Family Center.

Dean for diversity initiatives was one of 15 honored for her dedication to mentoring students studying science, mathematics, and engineering. Beth Olivares shares her talents in many ways at the…

Narayana Kocherlakota, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis and a leading scholar of monetary and financial economics, has been appointed as the inaugural Lionel W. McKenzie Professor of Economics. His appointment is effective January 1, 2016.