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Tweet, Screech, Hey!

Tweet, Screech, Hey! | Science News | Scoop.it

With its complex interweaving of symbols, structure, and meaning, human language stands apart from other forms of animal communication. But where did it come from? A new paper suggests that researchers look to bird songs and monkey calls to understand how human language might have evolved from simpler, preexisting abilities.

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Caffeine Helps Us Recognize Positive Words

Caffeine Helps Us Recognize Positive Words | Science News | Scoop.it

Does anyone still say "full of beans"? The phrase is supposed to describe someone who's upbeat and energetic. Maybe we can revive the expression by attaching it specifically to coffee beans, as in, "I just had a double-shot cappuccino and boy, oh boy am I full of beans!"

Nich Fitzgerald's curator insight, May 4, 2013 2:31 AM

This article is gives a great insite into how caffeine can affect your brain function.  

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Language is shaped by brain's desire for clarity and ease

Language is shaped by brain's desire for clarity and ease | Science News | Scoop.it

Cognitive scientists have good news for linguistic purists terrified about the corruption of their mother tongue.Using an artificial language in a carefully controlled laboratory experiment, a team from the University of Rochester and Georgetown University has found that many changes to language are simply the brain's way of ensuring that communication is as precise and concise as possible.

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Stereotyping and Prejudice in Children Begins with Generic Language Learning

Stereotyping and Prejudice in Children Begins with Generic Language Learning | Science News | Scoop.it

Most people learn generic language by the time they enter preschool. New research suggests that hearing generic language that describes people, like "girls cry, boys don't" can act a foundation for a child to learn stereotypes and cultural biases.

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Higher vocabulary ~ higher income

Higher vocabulary ~ higher income | Science News | Scoop.it

Prompted by a comment below I was curious as to the correlation between intelligence and income.

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Robot learns language through 'conversation' with people

Robot learns language through 'conversation' with people | Science News | Scoop.it
A robot analogous to a child between 6 and 14 months old can develop rudimentary linguistic skills through interaction with a human participant, as reported June 13 in the open access journal PLoS ONE.

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Saving dying languages with the help of math

Saving dying languages with the help of math | Science News | Scoop.it

At Discover Magazine, Veronique Greenwood has a really interesting story about a mathematician who is helping to preserve Scottish Gaelic. How? The researcher, Anne Kandler, has put together some equations that can help native language supporters target their programs and plan their goals.


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OUP research reveals children's imaginative language use

OUP research reveals children's imaginative language use | Science News | Scoop.it
Innovative use of language, a firm grasp of technology, and a thirst for unusual words are just some of the findings revealed about how children use language according to new Oxford University Press (OUP) research.
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[VIDEO] Relatively Speaking: Researchers Identify Principles That Shape Kinship Categories Across Languages

A new study published in Science by Carnegie Mellon University's Charles Kemp and the University of California at Berkeley's Terry Regier shows that kinship categories across languages reflect general principles of communication. The same principles can potentially be applied to other kinds of categories, such as colors and spatial relationships. Ultimately, then, the work may lead to a general theory of how different languages carve the world up into categories.


And... http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/340963/title/Family__labels_framed_similarly_across_cultures

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What Pronouns Can Tell You About Your Sex Life

What Pronouns Can Tell You About Your Sex Life | Science News | Scoop.it

The words we pay the least attention to in conversation--connectors like 'the', 'this', 'there', 'and' and 'that'--reflect our sexual desire and our place in society, says U of Texas psychologist James Pennebaker.

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Non-verbal communication between conductor, musician leads to better music

Non-verbal communication between conductor, musician leads to better music | Science News | Scoop.it

Musicians execute their performances better when the non-verbal sensorimotor communication between conductor and musician is maximized, according to research published May 9 in the open access journal PLoS ONE.

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Gestures fulfill a big role in language

Gestures fulfill a big role in language | Science News | Scoop.it
People of all ages and cultures gesture while speaking, some much more noticeably than others. But is gesturing uniquely tied to speech, or is it, rather, processed by the brain like any other manual action?


Articles about NEUROSCIENCE: http://www.scoop.it/t/science-news?tag=neuroscience


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Framing our unconscious: How language can be used to influence your thoughts, actions and beliefs beyond what you could ever expect (consciously)

Framing our unconscious:  How language can be used to influence your thoughts, actions and beliefs beyond what you could ever expect (consciously) | Science News | Scoop.it

Theoretical physicist, Leonard Mlodinow appeared on the Dylan Ratigan show today to discuss his new book Subliminal: how your unconscious mind rules your behavior.  

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Twitter shows language evolves in cities

Twitter shows language evolves in cities | Science News | Scoop.it

WHERE do new words come from? On Twitter at least, they often begin life in cities with large African American populations before spreading more widely, according to a study of the language used on the social network.

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Introverts use more concrete language than extraverts

Introverts use more concrete language than extraverts | Science News | Scoop.it

Your personality is revealed in the way you speak, according to new research. Introverts tend to use more concrete words and are more precise, in contrast to extraverts, whose words are more abstract and vague.

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Maybe your Baby can't read. But what about Sign Language?

Maybe your Baby can't read. But what about Sign Language? | Science News | Scoop.it

Robert Titzer, an educator with a doctorate in human performance from Indiana University, and his company claimed that more than a million families successfully used the “Your Baby Can Read” program and that they had studies to back up these claims. The FTC on the other hand says those studies were flawed.

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How Do Words, such as Yes and No, Change Our Brains and Lives? | SharpBrains

How Do Words, such as Yes and No, Change Our Brains and Lives? | SharpBrains | Science News | Scoop.it

By using lan­guage to help us reflect on pos­i­tive ideas and emo­tions, we can enhance our over­all well being, and we improve the func­tion­ing of our brain.

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Study: Decisions Made in a Foreign Language Are More Rational

Study: Decisions Made in a Foreign Language Are More Rational | Science News | Scoop.it

People who evaluated risk in a foreign language, it reports, were more rational and accurate than those who worked in their native tongue.

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Video Device Reads American Sign Language and Translates It Into Audible English

Video Device Reads American Sign Language and Translates It Into Audible English | Science News | Scoop.it

Sign language can greatly improve the communication capability of hearing-impaired people, but there’s still a major barrier in that most people don’t understand it. New prototype gadgets could change that, by automatically translating hand motions into audible speech that a non-signing person can interpret.

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Does Speaking in a Second Language Make You Think More, or Feel Less?

Does Speaking in a Second Language Make You Think More, or Feel Less? | Science News | Scoop.it

For all of our capacity for rational, analytical thought, we can have different feelings about the same thing—even make different decisions about it—depending on the language used to talk about it.

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Music: It's in your head, changing your brain

Music: It's in your head, changing your brain | Science News | Scoop.it

There are more facets to the mind-music connection than there are notes in a major scale, but it's fascinating to zoom in on a few to see the extraordinary affects music can have on your brain.

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How Language Affects Counting

How Language Affects Counting | Science News | Scoop.it

Every time the results of international test scores in mathematics are released, children from the United States usually perform dismally compared to children from other nations, particularly those from Asia. Differences in classroom instruction and curriculum may be partly to blame. But cultural differences in computational ability may have their roots in the words that different cultures use to represent numbers.

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Archaeologists discover lost language

Archaeologists discover lost language | Science News | Scoop.it
Evidence for a forgotten ancient language which dates back more than 2,500 years, to the time of the Assyrian Empire, has been found by archaeologists working in Turkey.


ARCHAEOLOGY: http://www.scoop.it/t/science-news?tag=archaeology

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Brain Represses Bad Words for Bilingual Readers

Brain Represses Bad Words for Bilingual Readers | Science News | Scoop.it
Negative emotions get lost in translation.
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Metaphors are the tip of the mind's iceberg.

Metaphors are the tip of the mind's iceberg. | Science News | Scoop.it

The conceptual metaphor explanation is transformative—it flies in the face of the accepted idea that metaphor is just a linguistic device based on similarity. In an instant, it made us rethink 2000 years of received wisdom.

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