Mind & Brain
Some Rules of Language are Wired in the Brain
In fascinating study involving synesthesia, people make good guesses at meanings of foreign words
Language966 articles archived since 1845
Mind & Brain
Babies Move Tongue to Learn New Tongues
Infants seemed to be able to differentiate between two different "D" sounds in Hindi—but only when their tongue movements weren't blocked by a teething device. Christopher Intagliata reports...
Mind & Brain
What Barks Say
Different sounds mean different things
The Sciences
Ancient Human Ancestors Heard Differently
Early human species may have had sharper hearing in certain frequencies than we enjoy, to facilitate short-range communication in an open environment. Cynthia Graber reports
Mind & Brain
Nonpolitical Tweets May Reveal Political Bias
Word selection among Twitter users who could be identified as likely members of one or the other political party showed specific usage patterns. Christopher Intagliata reports
Mind & Brain
Using Technology to Break the Speed Barrier of Reading
New research suggests that one of humanity’s most important inventions can be improved
Mind & Brain
A Tribute to Oliver Sacks from Colleague and Friend Christof Koch
The famed neurologist–author found uniqueness in every patient and savored the miracle of existence, whether it be found in squirrel monkeys or people
Mind & Brain
Oliver Sacks, Who Depicted Brain-Disorder Sufferers' Humanity, Dies
The prolific author–neurologist gave the world empathetic insights into disorders of the brain while also inspiring films, plays, an opera and likely many careers in medicine and brain science...
Mind & Brain
Whistled Language Forces Brain to Modify Usual Processing
Both hemispheres are involved in the brains of people interpreting a whistled variant of Turkish, compared with a left hemisphere dominance when listeners hear the spoken language ...
Mind & Brain
The Interleaving Effect: Mixing It Up Boosts Learning
Studying related skills or concepts in parallel is a surprisingly effective way to train your brain
Mind & Brain
Bonobo Peeps May Be Necessary Language Precursors
Animal communication studies have shown only fixed vocalizations, such as alarm cries. But Bonobo chimps appear to have a call that has different meanings in different contexts ...
The Imagination Institute Awards Nearly $3M to Advance the Science of Imagination
We spend so much time on standardized testing and measuring learning ability that we don’t track how much we’re developing the key competencies that enable us to imagine what could be...
Mentors Matter: In Loving Memory of Nicholas J. Mackintosh (1935-2015)
Today would have been my mentor's 80th birthday. Happy Birthday Nick and thanks for showing me that mentors really do matter.
Mind & Brain
How Is Creativity Differentially Related to Schizophrenia and Autism?
Autism and schizophrenia are related to different forms of creativity
Mind & Brain
Baby Bats Babble through Childhood Like We Do
Fruit bats stand in for vocal-learning mammals in isolation tests to test language development
Rice and Beans: Shaping the Customer's Choice
As more cultural commodities enter the market, cultural distinctions will become muted to suit the appetites of a wider clientele
Mind & Brain
Learning to Make a Stone Age Axe Gives Clues to How the Brain Evolved
For many decades, scientists have tried to understand the past by doing as our forebears did. One important endeavor in what is called experimental archaeology involves moderns crafting Stone Age tools by chipping away at rocks...
Why Babies (and Perhaps All of Us) Care About Magic
As adults, we don't often experience radical violations of our expectations, particularly those that concern core principles of object behavior.
How to Help the Growing Female Prison Population
Orange Is the New Black, the popular Netflix show based on the memoir by Piper Kerman, brought female prisons into America's living room, highlighting several issues that are plaguing the correctional system...
The Sciences
Book Review: Scientific Babel
Books and recommendations from Scientific American
