Last week, SurveyMonkey released a study comparing Bing and Google by separating the search results from the brands. The design was fairly simple: participants were given search results for a specific term and asked to choose which one they preferred. For about half, Bing results were labeled as Bing, Google results labeled as Google. The majority of people preferred the results labeled Google. The other half of participants, however, were...
Read More

Educators use the phrase “zone of proximal development” (or ZPD) to refer to those things that we can do with the help of others, but not yet on our own. And they generally use it with excitement, since that is where you often have the most fun with your students: when they are able, with your help, to see what they can’t yet do but will soon grow into. Obviously, it’s a term that comes up often in childhood development...
Read More

One of the unique interplays between psychology and language is the way in which we communicate using examples. If we were talking about a football game, for example, we would tend to focus on the highlights: the made catch, the missed opportunity. But in reality, the game is a series of plays, each slightly different but driving to the same conclusion. Science is much the same: while we sometimes like to talk about the highlights, we arrive at...
Read More

  First, a quick introduction: my name is Matt Wallaert, and I’m a behavioral scientist here at Bing. I work at the intersection of psychology and technology, and as part of that, you’ll see start seeing articles from me on the Bing blog as part of a new series we’re calling “Bing Your Brain.” Eight years ago, social psychologist Barry Schwartz gave an influential TED on “The Paradox of Choice”: that...
Read More