Tools developed by researchers exploring language and speech comprehension can become powerful aids for remedial readers, children with language challenges, and anyone learning a second language, according to psychology professor Dominic Massaro of the University of California, Santa Cruz. …
Read the full news release at the University of California Santa Cruz news room
Researchers at the University of California, Santa Cruz, have received funding from Microsoft Research to develop a virtual speech therapist, accessible on a cell phone, to aid stroke survivors in Malaysia. The self-contained language rehabilitation program will use a computer-generated talking head that provides realistic speech and mimics the natural movements of lips, tongue, and jaw. …
Read the full news release at University of California Santa Cruz news room
More of the brain is busy processing pitch from language and other sounds than previously thought, according to a researcher in neurophonetics at Purdue University. …
Read the full news release at Purdue University news room
A years-long study of apes performed by cognitive scientist Tomas Persson shows, among other things, that it doesn’t take a human brain to understand pictures as being a representation. Persson’s dissertation, which is now being submitted at Lund University, is the first one in Sweden to focus entirely on the thinking of apes. …
Read the full article at Alpha Galileo
The evolution of human speech was far more complex than is implied by some recent attempts to link it to a specific gene, says Robert Berwick, professor of computational linguistics at MIT. …
Read the full news article at EurekAlert
Using tools from the branch of mathematics known as graph theory to human memory to understand how words are stored may explain why many patients recover language skills after brain trauma such as stroke. Research suggests that the brain organizes words by sound, by word meaning or by a combination of sound and meaning. The connections throughout the brain though are varied creating shortcuts. …
Read the full news article at Newswise
Individuals with a neurodegenerative condition affecting language appear more likely to have had a history of learning disabilities than those with other types of dementia or with no cognitive problems, according to a report in the February issue of Archives of Neurology, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. …
Read the full news release at EurekAlert
Macaques may just seem to be indulging in monkey banter, but they can distinguish one another’s voices in much the same way that humans do, suggests a new study. …
Monkeys know one monkey voice from another
Language evolves in sudden leaps, according to a statistical study of three major language groups. The finding challenges the slow-and-steady model held by many linguists and matches evidence that genetic evolution follows a similar path. …
Read the full science news article at New Scientist
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