A new way to classify sounds in some human languages may solve a problem that has plagued linguists for nearly 100 years–how to accurately describe click sounds distinct to certain African languages.
Full article: EurekAlert
Dogs possess a two-year-old child’s capacity to understand human pointing gestures, with dogs requiring next to zero learning time to figure out the visual communication, according to two recent studies. The comparison with kids doesn’t end there. Due to domestication, dogs appear to be predisposed to read other human visual signals, including head-turning and gazing.
Full article: Discovery News
A child’s brain has to work overtime in a noisy classroom to do its typical but very important job of distinguishing sounds whose subtle differences are key to success with language and reading. But that simply is too much to ask of the nervous system of a subset of poor readers whose hearing is fine, but whose brains have trouble differentiating the “ba,” “da” and “ga” sounds in a noisy environment, according to a new Northwestern University study.
Full article: EurekAlert
Bad language could be good for you, a new study shows. For the first time, psychologists have found that swearing may serve an important function in relieving pain.
Full article: Scientific American
A new study carried out at the University of Haifa sheds light on how first and second languages are represented in the brain of a bilingual person
Full article: EurekAlert
People who have superior language skills early in life may be less likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease decades later, despite having the hallmark signs of the disease, according to research published in the July 9, 2009, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.
Full article: EurekAlert
It’s not only humans that can learn from watching television. Software developed in the UK has worked out the basics of sign language by absorbing TV shows that are both subtitled and signed.
Full article: New Scientist
Primates can intuitively recognise some rules of grammar, according to a study of cotton-topped tamarin monkeys (Saguinus oedipus). The findings do not mean primates can communicate using language, but they do suggest that some of the skills required to use language may be linked to very basic memory functions.
Full article: New Scientist
Historical collections that include everything ever written in a dozen American and British newspapers since they started are now available electronically. Donald MacQueen from Uppsala University, Sweden, has carried out the first comprehensive study that makes use of this resource in order to track changes in language usage, a method that makes it possible to attain an entirely new degree of precision in dating.
Full article: Physorg
UCLA study finds that activities that get children 2 months to 48 months talking are most conducive to language acquisition
Full article: University of California Newsroom
Scientists from Brown University and the University of Cincinnati found that a portion of the brain that handles decision-making also helps decipher different sounds.
Full article: Newswise
No Comments - Add a comment