Learning another language can change your perspective on Life!
The language we speak may influence not only our thoughts, but our implicit preferences as well. That’s the finding of a study by psychologists at Harvard University, who found that bilingual individuals’ opinions of different ethnic groups were affected by the language in which they took a test examining their biases and predilections.
Continue reading… “Language May Help Create, Not Just Convey, Thoughts and Feelings”
Dad?….
Stone Age humans were only able to develop relatively advanced tools after their brains evolved a greater capacity for complex thought, according to a new study that investigates why it took early humans almost two million years to move from razor-sharp stones to a hand-held stone axe.
Continue reading… “Stone Age Humans Needed More Brain Power… Who knew”
If only this were the case in America
Full-term babies are born with a key collection of networks already formed in their brains, according to new research that challenges some previous theories about the brain’s activity and how the brain develops.
Continue reading… “Babies Brain’s Crazy Unconscious Activity”
Geographic distribution of the 2,236 languages included in the present study
Psychologists at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Memphis have released a new study on linguistic evolution that challenges the prominent hypothesis for why languages differ throughout the world.
Continue reading… “Language Structure Is Partly Determined by Social Structure”
Here’s a piece of research that might leave you tickled: laughter is a universal language, according to new research. The study, conducted with people from Britain and Namibia, suggests that basic emotions such as amusement, anger, fear and sadness are shared by all humans.
Continue reading… “Everybody Laughs, Everybody Cries: Researchers Identify Universal Emotions”
A pair of studies by Duke University neuroscientists shows powerful new evidence of a deep biological link between human music and speech.
Continue reading… “Study: Music and Speech Based on Human Biology”
Researchers have discovered a genetic variation that may contribute to how empathetic a human is, and how that person reacts to stress. In the first study of its kind, a variation in the hormone/neurotransmitter oxytocin’s receptor was linked to a person’s ability to infer the mental state of others.
Continue reading… “Genetic Variation Linked to Individual Empathy, Stress Levels”
There are areas in the brain devoted to our arms, legs, and various parts of our bodies. The way these areas are distributed throughout the brain are known as “body maps” and there are some significant differences in these maps between left- and right-handed people. For example, in left-handed people, there is an equal amount of brain area devoted to the left and right arms in both hemispheres. However, for right-handed people, there is more cortical area associated with right arm than the left.
Continue reading… “Vast Right Arm Conspiracy? Study Suggests Handedness May Affect Body Perception”
Music is one of the surest ways to influence human emotions; most people unconsciously recognize and respond to music that is happy, sad, fearful or mellow. But psychologists who have tried to trace the evolutionary roots of these responses usually hit a dead end. Nonhuman primates scarcely respond to human music, and instead prefer silence.
Continue reading… “Monkeys Get A Groove On, But Only To Monkey Music”
In a study released online on July 22 in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society: Biological Sciences, researchers at Arizona State University and Princeton University show that ants can accomplish a task more rationally than our – multimodal, egg-headed, tool-using, bipedal, opposing-thumbed – selves. Continue reading… “Ants More Rational Than Humans?”
Only a handful of social animals — songbirds, some marine mammals, some bats and humans — learn to actively style their vocal communications. Babies, for instance, start by babbling, their first chance to experiment with sounds. Now, new research in songbirds shows that vocal experimentation may begin with their earliest vocalizations — food begging calls — and perhaps for a more devious reason than previously believed. The findings could change the way we think about the evolution of vocal learning.
Continue reading… “Songbirds’ Elaborate Cries For Food Show First Signs Of Vocal Learning”
Experimental devices that read brain signals have helped paralyzed people use computers and may let amputees control bionic limbs. But existing devices use tiny electrodes that poke into the brain. Now, a University of Utah study shows that brain signals controlling arm movements can be detected accurately using new microelectrodes that sit on the brain but don’t penetrate it.
