Articles tagged with Psycholinguistics
A randomized controlled trial found that Nurse-Family Partnership improved child language and mental health at age 2, with no increase in child injuries or maternal pregnancies. The study involved 739 participants and their children for 2.5 years, providing new evidence on preventing early adverse childhood experiences.
Research from UTHealth Houston reveals that different brain regions are engaged when processing simple versus complex melodies and sentences. The study used intracranial electrodes to map brain activity during music and language tasks, finding shared temporal lobe activity but distinct sensitivities to melodic and syntactic complexity.
A recent study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that officers' first 45 words during a vehicle stop with a Black driver can indicate how the stop will end. The study discovered a unique 'linguistic signature' that characterizes escalated stops, where officers give an order without stating the reaso...
Bilingual individuals from cultures where mental health is stigmatized may be more open to treatment when presented with information in their second language. Studies found participants recommended therapy more strongly in English compared to Chinese, suggesting a potential counteractive effect of cultural norms.
British and American English speakers use the word “right” in distinct ways. In everyday conversations, Brits use “right” to signal that what they hear is informative and relevant. This linguistic difference might contribute to the stereotype that British people are smarter due to their sophisticated accent.
GPT-3 performs nearly on par with humans in decision-making but struggles with causal reasoning and information search. The language model's limitations may be due to its passive information-gathering approach, highlighting the need for active interaction with the world to achieve human-like intelligence.
A recent study by sports psychology experts found that irrational beliefs are a key indicator of poor mental health in athletes. Athletes who use phrases like
A new research project aims to promote dual-language development for children with autism in bilingual families. The study will examine the type of bilingual environment and factors related to their ability to speak or understand both languages.
The University of Missouri has received a $2 million grant from the Department of Justice to help detect potential threats to school safety in rural Missouri schools. The project will partner with up to 26 rural school districts and utilize technology software to monitor online activity for threatening language or images.
Researchers propose a new approach to studying camouflaging in the autistic population by observing strategies used to fit into society. This phenomenon, characterized as hiding diagnosis and fitting in socially, is linked to high levels of anxiety and long-term mental problems.
Researchers used VR to teach language to participants, finding that those who learned in unique environments recalled more words (92%) compared to those who learned in the same environment (76%). Immersion in the VR world also played a key role in learning retention.
Researchers analyzed Reddit comments from various social groups to understand their values and principles. The study found that similar groups communicate in similar ways, but those related to stigma show greater variation in their language style.
Seal pups possess an innate ability to change their voice pitch and volume, as well as recognize and respond to rhythmic sounds. This study suggests a possible evolutionary link between human-like language abilities and vocal plasticity in seals.
Researchers at Duke University found that caregivers talk more to young children who start talking, regardless of gender, rather than solely due to girls having bigger vocabularies. Girls' vocabulary advantage may be attributed to factors other than parental language input, offering insights into language development.
Researchers discovered seven sperm whale vocal clans in the Pacific Ocean, each with unique dialects and identity codas. The study suggests that whales use these vocalizations to distinguish themselves from other groups, similar to human ethnic markers.
Researchers found that 7-month-old infants quickly discriminate between symmetrical and asymmetrical mosaics, indicating a robust ability to detect structural symmetry. This skill coincides with those found in studies using other stimuli, suggesting babies are good at extracting structure and rules from various media.
Researchers at Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics found that our brain is a prediction machine continuously making predictions on multiple levels. They analyzed brain activity while people listened to Hemingway or Sherlock Holmes stories and text, finding the brain response was stronger when words were unexpected in context.
Researchers found that verbal insults deliver a strong emotional impact, capturing attention and triggering a negative response in the brain. The study used EEG and skin conductance recordings to examine the effects of repeated insults versus compliments.
A neuroimaging study reveals that the brain differentiates between sentences and phrases by using unique timing and connectivity of neural firings. The findings provide new insights into how the brain creates language and could have implications for machine learning systems.
A commentary in Trends in Cognitive Sciences suggests using gender-neutral terms to minimize gender bias, while a 'gender-marking' approach can highlight women's success in male-dominated fields. However, this latter approach may reinforce negative stereotypes if used thoughtlessly.
Australian secondary students' math rankings have dropped to 29th place globally, with a new study suggesting hand gestures are crucial for understanding mathematical concepts. Online learning has exacerbated the issue, making it harder for students to grasp math concepts without human motor and sensory skills.
Researchers created a categorization system for content warnings, identifying fourteen categories, including violence, sex, stigma, and disturbing content. The study aims to facilitate the development of effective content warning systems that cater to specific audience needs.
Researchers at Radboud University found that as Zoom call video quality degrades, people start shouting and using more gestures to compensate. The study tracked participants' speech and gestures over 40 minutes of calls with deteriorating video quality.
A study by Tokyo University of Science researchers used WCNs with increasing n values to find features of language that cannot be analyzed using existing WCNs. They found important features in networks with more than three co-occurrences, independent of text data.
Research found that bilingualism can slow down age-related changes in the human brain, with longer language proficiency linked to improved conflict resolution skills. Bilingual speakers showed better performance in a flanker task, indicating enhanced inhibitory executive control.
Researchers reexamined hundreds of experiments on neural activity and consciousness, finding that experiment parameters determine results. The study used artificial intelligence to predict which theory would be supported by each experiment with 80% success.
Research finds that read-to-infants activities boost vocabulary growth during lockdown, while screen time is linked to fewer words; children learn more words than expected despite increased screen time.
Researchers from HSE School of Linguistics and Centre for Language and Brain conducted an experiment to understand how language speakers perceive polysemous words. The proximity of figurative senses to the literal sense affects perception as semantically different.
A recent study found that most vocal learners, such as dolphins and whales, sound higher than expected based on their body size, not lower. This challenges the idea that faking body size is linked to vocal learning and suggests a different evolutionary scenario for vocal communication in mammals.
Researchers studied harbour seal pups' vocal responses to sea noise, finding they lowered their tone to adapt. The study reveals young seals have advanced control over their vocalizations at an early age.
Researchers found no difference between kids exposed to language at birth, regardless of sign or speech. Children with delayed language exposure tend to struggle with executive functioning. The study suggests that 'talking' doesn't just mean speech—sign language exposure is equally nourishing for baby brains.
A study on a critically endangered primate species has discovered categorical rhythms in its songs, similar to those found in human music. The researchers recorded indri songs over a period of twelve years and found both 1:1 and 1:2 rhythmic categories, as well as ritardando effects.
Researchers found that newer formulas considering lexical sophistication, syntactic complexity, and cohesion predict ESL reading effort more accurately than traditional formulas. Eye-tracking data revealed that longer fixations, shorter movements, skipped words, and regressions indicate higher reading difficulty.
A team of researchers developed an algorithm that infers the communicative needs of different linguistic communities regarding colors. The study found that warm hues like reds and yellows have a higher demand for language, while less prominent colors are underrepresented.
A multidisciplinary team of scientists is using human whistled languages as a model to understand how dolphins encode complex information in their whistle communication. By studying the structure and attributes of human whistled speech, researchers aim to develop new techniques for analyzing dolphin whistles.
Researchers compared Fox News and MSNBC using natural language analysis, finding distinct linguistic styles in the two networks. The study analyzed over 283 million words in 52,000 transcripts, highlighting differences in pronoun use, analytic content, and noun use.
A new Yale University study reveals that social media platforms like Twitter amplify expressions of moral outrage over time, encouraging users to express more outrage with increased likes and shares. This finding has significant implications for leaders and policymakers who use these platforms.
A recent UNC-Chapel Hill study found that explicitly stating a person's preferred pronouns can improve understanding and interpretation of those pronouns. The study showed that participants were more likely to correctly interpret singular 'they' pronouns when they were explicitly told a person uses they/them pronouns.
A new study by the University of Waterloo found that using euphemistic language can bias people's evaluations of actions to be more favorable. The researchers used agreeable terms, such as 'enhanced interrogation,' instead of disagreeable ones, like 'torture,' to see how it affects people's judgments.
Researchers found that native Russian speakers can precisely predict specific words and grammatical properties of words, with neural network models showing comparable precision. The study also discovered that the neural network predicts low-probability words better than humans and predicts high-probability words worse than humans.
A new study uses psychological distance as a way to leverage qualities of existing consumer-brand relationships, finding that matching the distance with language can improve outcomes like brand spending and charitable donations. The research highlights the value for marketers to embrace the relationship status quo.
A UCL-led study found that unequal compensation reduces people's happiness and willingness to work. The research suggests that large disparities in rewards for the same task bring about greater unhappiness, leading to lower motivation and well-being. Participants who were told they would benefit from unfair advantages still showed a de...
Research reveals differing preferences for suffixes and prefixes across languages, including African Bantu language Kîîtharaka. English speakers favor suffixes, while Kîîtharaka speakers prefer prefixes.
Researchers found that single neurons' down-regulation of excitability can provide working memory for language processing. The model establishes context-dependent and serial order-sensitive memory, ideal for language comprehension.
Researchers used laminar fMRI to investigate brain activation at different layers during word reading, revealing top-down projections from language areas to deep layers. This breakthrough finding expands cognitive neuroimaging knowledge of brain networks.
Researchers argue that speech technology is not a solution for low literacy rates, as reading trains the language prediction system. Skilled readers can predict upcoming words, which reduces processing load and frees up brain resources.
Rehabilitation psychologists argue that avoiding the term 'disability' has unintended consequences, including reinforcing negative attitudes. They advocate for reclaiming the term as a valued aspect of diversity and identity, and encourage others to normalize its use.
In a study published in Journal of Memory and Language, researchers found that people actively track the occurrence of 'uh' in spoken communication to predict upcoming low-frequency words. Participants adjusted their predictions when listening to atypical talkers, suggesting distributional learning of disfluency cues.
A recent study published in Developmental Psychology found that brief training with rhythmic gestures has immediate benefits for children's narrative abilities, especially improving story structure. This novel finding demonstrates the importance of gestures in language development and cognitive growth.
A SDSU-led research team is working on ways to better detect language problems in children prior to age 3, when intervention might be more effective. The team has developed an instrument to assess stable concepts in children's vocabulary at age 2, which predicts their readiness for kindergarten at age 4.
A new study found that people judge like-minded peers as more expert in unrelated fields, overlooking those with actual expertise. This bias can lead to the spread of false news and reinforce social divisions.
Bilingual individuals exhibit unique brain activity when switching between languages, with increased cognitive control activity during disengagement. In contrast, engaging in a new language comes relatively cost-free from a neurobiological standpoint, suggesting that the burden of language-switching lies in disengagement.
Researchers found neural dynamics predict future speech timing based on past speech rate, influencing word comprehension. The study suggests that brain activity synchronizes to speech rhythms, affecting how we process and hear words.
A study led by UC Riverside psychologist Megan Zirnstein found that bilinguals can actively predict word meanings and adapt quickly, just like monolingual peers. The research highlights the need to acknowledge variability in bilingual communities and suggests that control ability can help readers overcome prediction errors.
Researchers compared neural activity of signers and speakers using magnetoencephalography, finding similar brain regions involved in phrase building. The study suggests that despite physical differences, signed and spoken languages share intricate neurobiological processes.
A study published in Psychological Science found that people tend to use more emotional language when trying to persuade an audience, even if it may not be effective. The researchers used a quantitative linguistic analysis tool to analyze reviews and found that participants used more emotional descriptors when trying to persuade readers.
Scientists have identified genetic variants associated with synaesthesia, revealing a connection between genes involved in brain cell wiring and the condition. The study provides new insights into the biology of synaesthesia, a trait that runs in families and can manifest differently in each individual.
Infants can generalize beyond their native language to recognize that all languages can allow people to communicate. By 12 months, infants understand that non-native languages can transfer information to others, even if they don't understand the words themselves.
Researchers found that babies as young as six months old can recognize relationships between words and objects, such as cars and strollers. This understanding of word relationships is linked to the amount of time caregivers talk about objects in their daily lives.
A study published in Springer's Psychonomic Bulletin & Review found that incorporating gestures into conversations leads to faster turn transition times and quicker responses. Gestures appear to provide a visual component that helps speakers convey additional information, enabling listeners to process and respond more efficiently.