Being an athlete or merely a fan improves language skills when it comes to discussing their sport because parts of the brain usually involved in playing sports are instead used to understand sport language, new research at the University of Chicago shows. …
Full article: EurekAlert
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
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
Talking fish are no strangers to Americans. From the comedic portrayal of “Mr. Limpet” by Don Knotts, to the children’s Disney favorite, “Nemo,” fish can talk, laugh and tell jokes–at least on television and the silver screen. But can real fish verbally communicate? Researchers say, “Yes,” in a paper published in the July 18 issue of the journal Science. Further, the findings put human speech–and social communications of all vertebrates–in evolutionary context. …
Full article: EurekAlert
Researchers from the Validation and Business Applications Group (VAI) at the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid’s School of Computing (FIUPM) have developed an intelligent computational model of the descriptive grammar of the Spanish language. This opens up new possibilities for the computational representation of languages and natural language processing applications. …
Full article: Universidad Politécnica de Madrid
Fossil finds suggest an early origin for human speech — It may be time to rethink the stereotype of grunting, wordless Neandertals. The prehistoric humans may have been quite chatty — at least if the ear canals of their ancestors are any indication. …
Full article: Science News
A well-nursed prejudice in scholarly communication is that researchers avoid journalists and are disappointed with the coverage when they do have contact with the media. A current study in the specialist journal Science shows the opposite to be true: more than half of the researchers questioned described their contact with journalists as predominantly good. Four out of ten found coverage in the public-sector beneficial to their career. The idea of the “ivory tower of science” can therefore no longer be upheld. …
Full article: EurekAlert!
Researchers led by Steven R. Wilson of Purdue University videotaped forty mothers as they completed a ten minute play period with one of their children between the ages of three and eight years. The mothers then completed a series of questionnaires including the Verbal Aggressiveness Scale. …
Full article: EurekAlert!
Humans interpret symbols every day, from traffic lights to warning labels on tins. We also use symbols on a more complex level such as currency. When we use money, be it a paper note or a coin, we inherently understand the corresponding intrinsic value that that note or coin has. Our whole economic system runs on the basis that we all understand the value currency has. The question is, do animals also have this understanding? The project SEDSU, funded by the EU with around EUR 37 500 in financing, is saying yes, animals may very well understand the power of symbols and of currency. …
Full article: European Commission Research
At this rate a monkey might prove the Riemann hypothesis. Rhesus macaques have been shown to possess yet another numerical talent once thought unique to humans – they can simultaneously count audible beeps and dots on a computer screen. …
Full article: New Scientist
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