Guest Post by Angela Grant, Pennsylvania State University Do you remember the last time you took a language course? No matter if it was online or classroom based, immersive or translation focused, I would be willing to bet a large sum of money that your language abilities when you left that course were different from […]
Decoding Reading in the Brain
Imagine trying to read a word – even this very sentence – and the letters all looking like a jumbled mess. You can see letters but they no longer make sense. This recently happened to patients who were in a unique study to investigate the origins of reading in the brain. These patients, who had […]
Eye Gaze and Turn Taking in Aphasia Patients
In every conversation you have, there is an unspoken code – a set of social rules that guide you. When to stop talking, where to look, when to listen and when to talk… While scientists have long understood this turn-taking behavior, less known has been what affects this ability in patients with aphasia, a disorder […]
Playing An Instrument Enhances Pitch Perception
Actions may speak more melodically than sounds. A new study shows that playing a melody on a musical instrument enhances how those melodies are perceived and remembered, above and beyond just listening to them. “We wanted to understand how the auditory system encodes and responds to musical events that the motor system has learned, says […]
Cochlear Implants Enable Deaf Children to Distinguish Basic Linguistic Features Rapidly
For parents of deaf children, deciding whether to get a cochlear implant can be tough. The great hope is that an implant will help deaf children gain oral language skills. Behavioral data has suggested that congenitally deaf children best receive implants by age 4, but little has been known about how they perceive their first […]
Using Fruits and Veggies to Break Down How We Remember and Identify Objects
Guest Post by Marc Coutanche, Yale University From a young age, we learn the differences between a lemon and a lime and dozens of other fruit, making going to a farmer’s market to shop for fruit a seemingly simple task. But despite appearances, very little is simple about holding what you want in mind, and then identifying […]
Coordinating Movement, Language, and Thoughts? An Expanded Role for the Cerebellum
Anytime we are using our coordination – whether taking a shot in golf or just reaching for a coffee mug – the cerebellum is at play. The small structure at the base of the brain is well-known to be critical in coordinating our movements, their precision and timing. But according to a growing body of […]
Unleashing the Power of the Bilingual Mind
Guest post by Anna M. Beres, Bangor University Writing or talking about my research in English is relatively easy. I do it everyday, even though my native language is Polish and I work in Wales, where I am constantly switching between English and Welsh. But whenever I try to explain my work to my family in […]
Linguistics Sleuths Probe the Mental Health of Agatha Christie
Agatha Christie was a master storyteller who weaved together seemingly disparate clues to tell a compelling mystery. Now, scientists are trying to sleuth the details of her mental health using linguistics analyses. A new study, which looks at the works of six renowned authors over their decades’ long writing careers, found that Christie likely suffered […]
Sweet! Taste Metaphors Elicit More Emotion Than Literal Phrases
“That it will never come again is what makes life so sweet.” – Emily Dickinson Poets have long known that metaphors can elevate words to higher level. Now scientists know part of the reason why: A new study suggests that reading metaphors, specifically those with words associated with taste, recruits areas of the brain associated […]
