Researchers have added a new piece to the puzzle of how the brain selectively amplifies those distinctions that matter most from the continuous cascade of sights, sounds, and other sensory input. Whether recognizing a glowering face among smiling ones or the unmistakable sound of a spouse calling one’s name, such “categorical perception” is central to sensory function. …
Read the full news article at Science Daily
Researchers at the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid’s School of Computing have developed an original system for building multilingual dictionaries based on multiple term equivalences from what are known as universal words. System reliability and accuracy is 88%. …
Read the full news release at Universidad Politécnica de Madrid’s School of Computing
Dolphins appear to change their vocalisations depending on their physical and social environments and level of human interaction, new research shows. …
Read the full news release at the University of Queensland science news room
Skilled jade craftsmen may have helped to spread the Austronesian languages. …
Read the full news article at Nature Science News
Researchers find that oral reading tests fail to distinguish between children who can’t understand words on a page and those who have language problems that make it difficult to prove their reading competence verbally. Children with these so-called “word-finding” difficulties can’t manage to say out loud what they read on the page. The researchers estimate that as many as ten percent of all children may have these speech language problems. The study recommends silent reading tests and limited use of oral ones. …
Read the full news article at Newswise Education News
Traditional roles of women in the home and a negative bias in workplace support result in less career success for women versus men at the same stage of their research careers, determined researchers at the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) in a study appearing in the November 2007 issue of EMBO reports. …
Read the full news release at Alpha Galileo
Scientists from Boston University are a step closer to reading the mind of a person who is not able to speak because of paralysis. Researchers say the new technique will soon begin translating brain signals of a paralyzed man into sounds. …
Read the full news story at All Headline News
Carnegie Mellon University neuroscientist Marcel Just and Stanford postdoctoral fellow Sashank Varma have put forward a new computational theory of brain function that provides answers to one of the central questions of modern science: How does the human brain organize itself to give rise to complex cognitive tasks such as reading, problem solving and spatial reasoning? Just and Varma’s theory, called 4CAPS, is described in the fall issue of the journal Cognitive, Affective, and Behavioral Neuroscience. …
Read the full news article at Carnegie Mellon news room
Forty-one neurons is a drop in the ocean compared with the hundred billion or so cells that are present in our brains. But those few neurons could help Eric Ramsey talk again. …
Read the full article at EurekAlert
Washoe, who has been called the first non-human to be able to attempt human-like communication with a set of signs, has passed away. The chimpanzee was 42.
National Geographic has more details of the chimp’s remarkable career. However, try your best not to mind their labelling her “the first nonhuman to acquire human language”. Believe me, I tried to find a news source that wouldn’t do that, but failed rather miserably.
Some children with dyslexia struggle to read because their brains aren’t properly wired to process fast-changing sounds, according to a brain-imaging study published this month in the journal Restorative Neurology and Neuroscience (online October 16). The study found that sound training via computer exercises can literally rewire children’s brains, correcting the sound processing problem and improving reading. According to the study’s first author, Nadine Gaab, PhD, of the Developmental Medicine Center Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience at Children’s Hospital Boston, the finding may someday help clinicians diagnose dyslexia even before reading begins, and suggests new ways of treating dyslexia, such as musical training. …
Read the full news release at Children’s Hospital Boston news room
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