Feature Channels: Cognition and Learning

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– Individuals with a higher level of moral reasoning skills showed increased gray matter in the areas of the brain implicated in complex social behavior, decision making, and conflict processing as compared to subjects at a lower level of moral reasoning, according to new research from the Perelman School of Medicine and the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in collaboration with a researcher from Charité Universitätsmediz in Berlin, Germany. The team studied students in the Masters of Business Administration (MBA) program at the Wharton School. The work is published in the June 3rd edition of the journal PLOS ONE.

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Who says you can’t do two things at once and do them both well?

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Though people can distinguish among millions of colors, we have trouble remembering specific shades because our brains tend to store what we’ve seen as one of just a few basic hues.

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If you’re a musician, this sounds too good to be true: University of Chicago psychologists have been able to train some adults to develop the prized musical ability of absolute pitch, and the training’s effects last for months.

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In Monster Proof, a new browser-based puzzle game from voidALPHA, players assume the role of a newly crowned ruler of a vast country in a fantasy setting. To win, they use problem-solving skills to answer illustrated mathematical questions. As each level is solved, the game crowd sources the software security process of formal verification.

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Trending news releases with the most views in a single day. Topics include: genetics, cancer, nanotech, elderly care, marketing research, energy, children's health, and immunology.

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Trending news releases with the most views in a single day. Topics include: gun regulation, psychology and altruism, big data, threats to coral reefs, extra-terrestrial life, personalized diets, metabolic syndrome and heart health, new drug target to treat arthritis, and archeologists find oldest tools.

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“During the preschool period, children see and interact with a variety of print at home, in the community and at daycare or school,” says Kaitlin Vogtner Trainor, speech language-pathologist at Loyola University Health System. “This exposure to print builds phonological awareness skills, the recognition that words are made up of separate speech sounds, which leads to stronger reading and writing skills later in life.”

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“Sometimes baby talk is associated with nonsense words and sounds and even distorts sounds of words, providing inaccurate models of the infants and developing child, this is not encouraged,” says Kathleen Czuba, speech language therapist, Loyola University Health System. “Research in the field of child development and speech and language acquisition instead recommends the use of ‘parentese.’ This type of speech has been shown to positively support the development of speech and language.”

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“Challenges with speech and language are likely to have an impact on the child’s overall development including in the areas of socials skills, academia and even can impact a child’s behavior,” says Kathleen Czuba, speech-language therapist, Loyola University Health System. “The earlier a child's speech and language problems are identified and treated, the less likely it is that problems will persist or get worse.”

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Inducing a sense of awe in people can promote altruistic, helpful and positive social behavior according to research published by the American Psychological Association.

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Studies have shown that individuals with hearing loss or who are listening to degraded speech – think of a loud room -- have greater difficulty remembering and processing the spoken information than individuals who heard more clearly. Now researchers are investigating whether listening to accented speech similarly affects the brain's ability to process and store information. Their preliminary results suggest that foreign-accented speech, even when intelligible, may be slightly more difficult to recall than native speech.

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A McGill University/UQAM research team has discovered that 6-month-old infants appear to be much more interested in listening to other babies than they are in listening to adults. The researchers believe that an attraction to infant speech sounds may help to kick start and support the crucial processes involved in learning how to talk.

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Confirming what many parents already know, researchers at Georgia State University and the University of Washington have discovered that toddlers, especially those with siblings, understand how the sounds they make affect people around them.

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When it comes to rewards and punishments, which is more effective — the carrot or the stick? A simple experiment devised at Washington University in St. Louis suggests that punishments are more likely to influence behavior than rewards. The results, which stem from a study involving 88 students at the university, are available online in the journal Cognition.

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A new University of North Carolina School of Medicine study shows that using the most common form of electric brain stimulation had a statistically significant detrimental effect on IQ scores.

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Trending news releases with the most views in a single day. Topics include: new biotech treatment for radiation proctitis, 3D printing in children's health, work and brain health, the importance of medical research, multi-institute collaboration on medical education technology, tax cuts and the economy, cancer survival, and Alzheimer's research.

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The University of Washington study is among the first to identify structural brain differences between children with the two learning disorders and between those children and typical language learners. Researchers say the findings prove that using a single category of learning disability to qualify for special education services is not scientifically supported.

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Epigenetic marks on our DNA account for how all cells in the body have the same DNA sequence, inherited from our parents, but nonetheless there are hundreds of different cell types. The body uses epigenetics as its principal control system, to increase or decrease the expression of our genes, and epigenetic processes are known to be important in memory and other aspects of brain function. The new research used umbilical cord tissue collected at birth and identified epigenetic marks in a key brain development gene called HES1 that were linked to the child’s ability to learn and their cognitive performance at ages 4 and 7 years. The findings in two groups of children in Southampton, UK, were accompanied by additional findings in children from Singapore that HES1 epigenetic marks at birth were associated with aspects of socially disruptive behaviour that have previously been linked with a reduced school performance.

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This story looks at how to enrich that special connection between a child and parents.

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Salk scientists discover a learning circuit in worms that gives clues to human behavior.

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Salk scientists discover a single protein that energizes muscles and the brain

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Trending news releases with the most views in a single day. Topics include: education, children's health, autism, obesity, smoking, weight loss, LHC re-start, malaria, food safety, kidney disease, and avian flu.

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Trending news releases with the most views in a single day. Topics include: neurology, concussions, STEM jobs, Medical licensing, gun safety and youth, research ethics, and sleep apnea and blood pressure.

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Infants have innate knowledge about the world and learn best when their expectations are defied.

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Having a strong sense that your life has meaning and direction may make you less likely to develop areas of brain damage caused by blockages in blood flow as you age. This research is reported in the American Heart Association’s journal Stroke.

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Using both robots and infants, an Indiana University cognitive scientist and collaborators have found that posture is critical in the early stages of acquiring new knowledge.

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Researchers have developed five tips for getting more useful employee responses

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Mood disorder research suggests that early life stress may cause excess serotonin release, resulting in a serotonin deficit where the brain needs it most. The data suggest a reason why SSRI medications may fail in many patients, and why depressed patients may benefit from strategic SSRI-augmenting treatment approaches.

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When making simple decisions, neurons in the brain apply the same statistical trick used by Alan Turing to help break Germany’s Enigma code during World War II, according to a new study in animals by researchers at Columbia University’s Zuckerman Mind Brain and Behavior Institute.

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Georgia Tech study challenged younger and older people to look at faces at names while either listening to non-lyrical music or nothing at all. The college-aged participants had no problems - the music didn't affect their performance. But the older adults remembered 10 percent fewer names when listening to background music or musical rain (as compared to silence).

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Turns out we may have more in common with crocodiles than we'd ever dream. According to research by a psychology professor at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, crocodiles think surfing waves, playing ball and going on piggyback rides are fun, too.

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A team of Canadian researchers has combined the art of magic and the science of psychology to demonstrate how certain contextual factors can sway the decisions people make, even though they may feel that they are choosing freely.

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A new University of Iowa study finds pigeons can categorize 128 photographs into 16 categories of natural and manmade objects, a skill researchers say is similar to the mechanism children use to learn words.

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Researchers have succeeded in peering into the brains of live mice with such precision that they were able to see how the position of specific proteins changed as memories were forged.

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Salk scientists discover how a "mini-brain" in the spinal cord aids in balance

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Former National Football League (NFL) players who participated in tackle football before the age of 12 were more likely to have memory and thinking problems in adulthood, according to a new study published in the January 28, 2015, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

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A neuroimaging study by a University at Buffalo psychologist suggests that phonics shouldn’t be overlooked in favor of a whole-language technique, a finding that could help improve treatment and diagnosis of common reading disorders.

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Psychopathic violent offenders have abnormalities in the parts of the brain related to learning from punishment, according to an MRI study led by Sheilagh Hodgins and Nigel Blackwood.

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Neurons that trigger our sense of thirst—and neurons that turn it off—have been identified by Columbia University Medical Center neuroscientists. The paper was published today in the online edition of Nature.

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Older adults who learn a new, mentally demanding skill can improve their cognitive function, according to research by Jennifer Lodi-Smith, PhD, psychology professor at Canisius College.

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The female hormones estrogen and estradiol may help ward off the effects of lead exposure for young girls, explaining why boys, are shown to suffer more often from the cognitive disabilities linked to lead.

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Sound sleep in young and middle-aged people helps memory and learning, but as they hit their seventh, eighth and ninth decades — and generally don’t sleep as much or as well — sleep is not linked so much to memory, a Baylor University researcher says.

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Classic psychedelic drugs include LSD, psilocybin and mescaline. This new School of Public Health research is published in the Journal of Psychopharmacology.

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It’s not surprising that our memories of highly emotional events, such as 9/11 or the birth of a child, are quite strong. But can these events change our memories of the past? NYU researchers report that emotional learning can lead to the strengthening of older memories.

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An international team of researchers says climate change, the loss of biosphere integrity, land-system change, and altered biogeochemical cycles like phosphorus and nitrogen runoff have all passed beyond levels that put humanity in a “safe operating space.” Civilization has crossed four of nine so-called planetary boundaries as the result of human activity, according to a report published today in Science by the 18-member research team.

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Depression and other behavior changes may show up in people who will later develop Alzheimer’s disease even before they start having memory problems, according to a new study published in the January 14, 2015, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

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Higher cognitive skills are found in the children of mothers who are consistently able to support the development of their baby’s sense of autonomy, according to a study led by researchers at the University of Montreal. The researchers specifically looked at executive functioning, which refers to a range of cognitive processes that are essential for cognitive, social and psychological functioning.

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Picking a needle out of a haystack might seem like the stuff of fairytales, but our brains can be electrically “tuned” to enable us to do a much better job of finding what we’re looking for, even in a crowded and distracting scene, new research indicates.