What Science Tells Us about Why We Lie

Posted on March 20, 2014 by izhar cohen

This month’s Scientific American’s Skeptic dealt with the question of: When are we most (and least) likely to lie?

For that purpose Michael Shermer cited Geico insurance’s ad, showing Mary Lincoln asking her husband, “Does this dress make my backside look big?” Honest Abe squirms and shifts, then hesitates and, while holding his thumb and forefinger an inch apart, finally mutters, “Perhaps a bit,” causing his wife to spin on her heels and exit in a huff.

The rest of the article, is a fascinating in-depth look into the mechanism of lying, a great read.

A link to the full article, here.

Abraham Lincoln unlucky day – line

Abraham Lincoln unlucky day – AW

Advisers along the path to retirement

Posted on March 18, 2014 by izhar cohen

Investment News often Provides me with challenges of the kind that requires me to speak my own visual language without any grammatical ‘glitches’.

Here I had to visually represent the retirement planning process of a consultant.

Initially, I came up with an idea which I thought would reflect the text in its essence while showing the consultants as they glide over their obstacles on their way to the finish line. I thought of a tailor-made track, designated for one of the contestants who stumbled, and had to retire from the race before reaching the finishing line.

It seem that my interpretation was not accurate, and could bare a misleading interpretation to the text.

Road to retirement-ROUGH

So, I went back to the drawing board, and decided to retrieve the good old maze theme from my drawer.

The maze-Rough

After some coming and goings, I have produced the image, here below, which I believe both the editor and myself felt satisfied with:

Succession Planning AW

Shame the title took away some of the punch from the drawing, but still, it is working alright.

Succession Planning

Anti-immunisation voice is getting louder

Posted on March 11, 2014 by izhar cohen

Vaccinations protect from a host of potentially nasty diseases, but the anti-immunisation voice is getting louder. What should a parent do?

This image, in the same way was the previous one escaped my blog, simply through laziness… This illustration accompanied an article in G magazine, dealing with a world-wide trend of parents shying away from vaccinating their kids.

This creates a controversial debate; On the one hand, the merits of vaccination have been proved over decades to benefit humanity and practically, eliminate certain disease. On the other hand, the side effects are a source of great fear and anxiety from the unknown.

At the end of the day, Parents electing not to vaccinate their kids, are creating by so doing an enclave of individuals who might be both, vulnerable to bacteria’s attack and might equally, be the ones who could maintain an ongoing contamination.