CNS 2020 Guest Post by Anne Billot Being able to directly target specific areas of the brain is important both for cognitive neuroscientists seeking to establish direct causal links between neural signal and cognitive processes and for clinicians treating neurological disorders. The gold standard for approaching such tasks has been to directly manipulate the brain […]
TMS Provides a Window into Language Network Reorganization After a Stroke
CNS 2020 Guest Post by Natalie Gilmore In recent years, scientists have used neurostimulation techniques such as transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to help understand how various aspects of the brain work. By sending electrical currents to one part of the brain, they can help isolate functionality. Such studies are especially valuable in understanding how the […]
Communication Control: The Brain Activity that Monitors Our Speech
When we communicate with others, we are constantly monitoring our speech and theirs — taking in multiple external cues — to best engage in meaningful conversation. Despite the multidimensional aspects of speech monitoring, most studies on the topic to date have focused on how we produce a string of accurately sequenced sound units rather than […]
The Centrality of Character to Storytelling in the Brain
While binge watching a new show, I sometimes wonder what’s keeping me watching even when the plot, well, falls apart. Usually, it has to do with the characters; watching them show after show makes it hard to separate from them even when the plot is no longer engaging. A new study about narrative storytelling might […]
Linking Words and Memories: How We Remember the Structure of Things
Speaking at the Big Ideas in Neuroscience session at the recent CNS annual meeting, Angela Friederici of the Max Planck Institute discussed language as a unique human trait. Understanding of the words we use comes from different types of memories in different networks the brain. Neuroscientists often gain insight into these connections through individuals with […]
Prioritizing Gestures in Communication
The very first way babies communicate is through gestures (well, in addition to crying, that is). They may express “I want that” as a distinct pointing toward an object. As people grow older, gestures are not abandoned, but both spoken and body language become more ambiguous. Oftentimes, adults will point and gesture while talking without […]
Memory, Language, Action: Watch Big Ideas in Cognitive Neuroscience
Does the human brain process memory like a computer processes information? What enables human language with all its nuances and complexities? How does flexibility in the brain give rise to learning? These were just a few of the questions explored at Big Ideas in Cognitive Neuroscience, a special session at this year’s CNS meeting in […]
The Bilingual Brain: One Size Doesn’t Fit All
Guest Post by Angela Grant, Pennsylvania State University Over the last few years, you may have noticed a surfeit of articles covering current research on bilingualism. Some of them suggest that bilingualism “sharpens the mind,” while other titles are clearly intended to provoke more doubt than confidence: “Is Bilingualism Really an Advantage?”. The pendulum swing […]
11 Cognitive Neuroscience Stories Not to Miss from 2016
Implicit bias, plasticity, and language were front and center in the most popular CNS stories of 2016. From using neuroscience findings to help understand and reduce bias to exploring why some people learn a second language more easily than others to recent debates over neuroimaging techniques, cognitive neuroscientists continue to chart new territory in their […]
Making Language Research Less Alien: The Science of Arrival
Outside of superintelligence thrillers like Lucy or Limitless, it’s rare to have a popular Hollywood blockbuster explore a sliver of cognitive neuroscience. Even rarer is for that sliver to involve language science, which is why I was thrilled to see linguistics front and center in Arrival. Aside from it being an intelligent, well-acted, and fun […]
