Saturday, August 30, 2008
What happens when linguistic tools used to analyze human language are applied to a conversation between a language-competent bonobo and a human? The findings, published this month in the Journal of Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science, indicate that bonobos may exhibit larger linguistic competency in ordinary conversation than in controlled experimental settings. …
Full article: Great Ape Trust of Iowa
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
A new study in the journal Mind, Brain, and Education detects a systematic link between children’s “theory of mind” as assessed in kindergarten and their metacognitive knowledge in elementary school. …
Full article: EurekAlert
Add elephants to the growing menagerie of animals that can count. An Asian elephant named Ashya beat this reporter at a devilishly simple addition problem. When a trainer dropped three apples into one bucket and one apple into a second, then four more apples in the first and five more in the second, the pachyderm recognised that three plus four is greater than one plus five, and snacked on the seven apples. (In my defence, I watched the video in a noisy and crowded auditorium.) …
Full article: New Scientist
Indigenous Australian children who speak languages that have few number words are still able to count, according to a new international study. …
Full article: EurekAlert
Self-recognition, it has been argued, is a hallmark of advanced cognitive abilities in animals. It was previously thought that only the usual suspects of higher cognition—some great apes, dolphins, and elephants—were able to recognize their own bodies in a mirror. In this week’s issue of PLoS Biology, psychologist Helmut Prior and colleagues show evidence of self-recognition in magpies—a species with a brain structure very different from mammals.
Full article: EurekAlert
Researchers at the University of Rochester’s Eastman School of Music and Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences have developed a unique test for perfect pitch, and have found surprising results. Their research shows that perfect pitch—the ability to recognize and remember a tone without a reference—is apparently much more common in non-musicians than scientists had expected. Previous tests have overlooked these people because without extensive musical training it’s very difficult for someone to identify a pitch by name, the method traditionally used for identifying those with perfect pitch. The new test can be used on non-musicians, and is based on a technique to discern how infants recognize words in a language they’re learning. …
Full article: EurekAlert
A new study could explain why “daddy” and “mommy” are often a baby’s first words – the human brain may be hard-wired to recognize certain repetition patterns. …
Full article: Science Daily
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