Social Objects in the Brain
Aarhus UniversityThe study suggests that we experience symbolic objects as social entities.
The study suggests that we experience symbolic objects as social entities.
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When you take acetaminophen to reduce your pain, you may also be decreasing your empathy for both the physical and social aches that other people experience, a new study suggests.
New study finds users focus on concrete details rather than the big picture.
A new study reveals children's language development is a learnt skill and is intricately linked to their ability to recognise patterns in their environment.
People who may be exposed to trauma can train themselves to think in a way that could protect them from PTSD symptoms, according to a study from Kings College London and Oxford University.
Context plays a big role in our memories, both good and bad. Bruce Springsteen's "Born to Run" on the car radio, for example, may remind you of your first love -- or your first speeding ticket. But a Dartmouth- and Princeton-led brain scanning study shows that people can intentionally forget past experiences by changing how they think about the context of those memories.
The brain produces feelings of confidence that inform decisions the same way statistics pulls patterns out of noisy data.
The aroma of rosemary essential oil may improve ability of people over 65 to remember events and to remember to complete tasks at particular times in the future.
In an Olympics tennis analogy, when a high degree of accuracy is required, a one-second delay in frontal cortex processing could make the difference between an Olympic gold and silver, according to the researchers.
WACO, Texas (April 13, 2016) — Couples’ romances, marriages and conflicts are favorite research subjects of Baylor University psychologist Keith Sanford, Ph.D. But he deals with other relationships in a rock music video he wrote to help his students as they wrestle with statistics. Studies have shown that music enhances memory and learning, and “I wanted something different from a lecture,” says Sanford, a former rock band member who is an associate professor of psychology in Baylor’s College of Arts & Sciences.
A healthy brain is critical to a person's cognitive abilities, but measuring brain health can be a complicated endeavor. A new study by University of Illinois researchers reports that healthy brain metabolism corresponds with fluid intelligence - a measure of one's ability to solve unusual or complex problems - in young adults.
Birds living in urban environments are smarter than birds from rural environments. But, why do city birds have the edge over their country friends? They adapted to their urban environments enabling them to exploit new resources more favorably then their rural counterparts, say a team of all-McGill University researchers.
A UCSB psychologist shows that while environmental intervention can raise general intelligence, the effects aren’t permanent.
Home-based interventions that teach parents to engage children in playful interactive learning activities can close the cognitive development gap between disadvantaged children and high-resource peers, according to a new study led by RTI International.
Small numbers are processed in the right side of the brain, while large numbers are processed in the left side of the brain, new research suggests.
Everyone has a different mixture of personality traits: some are outgoing, some are tough and some are anxious. A new study suggests that brains also have different traits that affect both anatomical and cognitive factors, such as intelligence and memory.
Young children will spontaneously invent tool behaviours to solve novel problems, without the help of adults, much as non-human great apes have been observed to do. The findings, from the University of Birmingham, are contrary to the popular belief that basic tool use in humans requires social learning.
Researchers discover how a bat’s brain screens out sounds not worth paying attention to..
Why does sleeping on it help? This is the question tackled by new research at the University of Bristol, which reveals how brain activity during sleep sorts through the huge number of experiences we encounter every day, filing only the important information in memory.
Motion-controlled video games, such as those played on the Wii, may help boost skills when players compete in the real world, according to a team of researchers.
Essential for maintaining cognitive function as a person ages, the tiny locus coeruleus region of the brain is vulnerable to toxins and infection.
A team of researchers at the University of Connecticut is reexamining a decades-long debate as to whether deaf children should learn sign language to maximize their potential for optimal development.
In a randomized control trial, volunteer participants were subjected to Taser shocks and tested for cognitive impairment. Some showed short-term declines in cognitive functioning comparable to dementia, raising serious questions about the ability of police suspects to understand their rights at the point of arrest.
New research from the University of Guelph on the brain and memory could help in developing therapies for people with schizophrenia and Alzheimer’s disease.
John Tracy Clinic (JTC), a non-profit diagnostic and education center for young children with hearing loss, announced today the launch of their new “Parent Toddler Discovery Program.” Taking place from July 10 – 15, 2016, the new program will be available as part of this year’s JTC Summer Sessions schedule.
A new study indicates that children with Down syndrome who have motor speech deficits have been inadequately diagnosed, which could have a major impact on the interventions used by speech pathologists when treating patients.
The effect of aging on cognitive processes such as learning, memory and logical reasoning have so far been studied almost exclusively in people. Using a series of touchscreen tests, Lisa Wallis and Friederike Range of the Messerli Research Institute at Vetmeduni Vienna have now studied these domains in pet dogs of varying ages.
When babies and toddlers play with a tablet or other noisy device, they often play alone, which can be detrimental to their development, according to Bradford Wiles, an assistant professor and extension early child development specialist at Kansas State University. Research has shown that children need meaningful interaction with adults to reach their full social potential.
As brain cells age they lose the fibers that receive neural impulses, a change that may underlie cognitive decline. Researchers at the University of California, Irvine recently found a way to reverse this process in rats. The study was published February 3 in The Journal of Neuroscience. Researchers caution that more studies are needed, but the findings shed light on the mechanisms of cognitive decline and identify potential strategies to stem it.
Why do humans and dolphins evolve large brains relative to the size of their bodies while blue whales and hippos have brains that are relatively puny? While there has been much speculation regarding brain size and intelligence, a new paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences confirms that species with brains that are large relative to their body are more intelligent.
When practicing and learning a new skill, making slight changes during repeat practice sessions may help people master the skill faster than practicing the task in precisely the same way, Johns Hopkins researchers report.
New research from the University of Cincinnati (UC) College of Medicine suggests that prenatal exposure to flame retardants and perfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) commonly found in the environment may have a lasting effect on a child’s cognitive and behavioral development, known as executive function.
Taking more time to make decisions after a mistake arises from a mixture of adaptive neural mechanisms that improve the accuracy and maladaptive mechanisms that reduce it, neuroscientists at New York University have found. Their study also potentially offer insights into afflictions that impair judgments, such as Alzheimer’s Disease and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.
Individuals who participated in high challenge activities like quilting and photography showed enhanced brain activity, according to a new Restorative Neurology and Neuroscience report.
A team of researchers has discovered that differences in the types of memories we have influence the nature of our future encounters. Their findings show how distinct parts of the brain, underlying different kinds of memories, also influence our attention in new situations.
Do students think best when on their feet? A new study by the Texas A&M Health Science Center School of Public Health indicates they do. Findings published recently in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health provide the first evidence of neurocognitive benefits of stand-height desks in classrooms, where students are given the choice to stand or sit based on their preferences.
Brain scans show that stories that force us to think about our deepest values activate a region of the brain once thought to be its autopilot.
A new University of Iowa study finds babies make more speech-like sounds during reading than when playing with puppets or toys—and mothers are more responsive to these types of sounds while reading to their child than during the other activities.
The act of handling money makes young children work harder and give less, according to new research published by the University of Minnesota's Carlson School of Management and University of Illinois at Chicago. The effect was observed in children who lacked concrete knowledge of money's purpose, and persisted despite the denomination of the money.
Research published in the Journal of Neuroscience has shown that retrieving memories of events from our past may take place quicker than we previously thought – and it is possible to interfere with that process.
Mothers, put down your smartphones when caring for your babies! That’s the message from University of California, Irvine researchers, who have found that fragmented and chaotic maternal care can disrupt proper brain development, which can lead to emotional disorders later in life.
Researchers at New Mexico State University are mimicking high-stakes visual search scenarios in the lab to gauge performances of independent searchers and search pairs. Preliminary research showed that two heads might not always be better than one.
The workings of neural circuits associated with creativity are significantly altered when artists are actively attempting to express emotions, according to a new brain-scanning study of jazz pianists.
New findings by French researchers show that the brain devotes more processing resources to social situations that signal threat than those that are benign.
Did you receive affection, play freely and feel supported in childhood? Childhood experiences like these appear to have a lot to do with well-being and moral capacities in adulthood, according to University of Notre Dame researchers.
A new study by University of Guelph researchers that narrows down where and how estrogens affect the brain may help in understanding how the hormones affect cognition and memory in women. The team found that adding the hormone to female mouse brains helps boost short-term learning, likely through a “use-it-or-lose-it” process.
Our vision and hearing aren't as reliable as we might think, according to a study by life scientists at UCLA.
Playing three-dimensional video games – besides being lots of fun – can boost the formation of memories, according to University of California, Irvine neurobiologists. Along with adding to the trove of research that shows these games can improve eye-hand coordination and reaction time, this finding shows the potential for novel virtual approaches to helping people who lose memory as they age or suffer from dementia.