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Your Native Tongue Holds a Special Place in Your Brain, Even if You Speak 10 Languages
Most people will learn one or two languages in their lives. But Vaughn Smith, a 47-year-old carpet cleaner from Washington, D.C., speaks 24. Smith is a hyperpolyglot—a rare individual who speaks more than 10 languages. In a new brain imaging study, researchers peered inside the minds of polyglots like Smith to tease out how language-specific regions in their brains respond to hearing different languages. Familiar languages elicited a stronger reaction than unfamiliar ones, they found, with one important exception: native languages, which provoked relatively little brain activity. This, the authors note, suggests there’s something special about the languages we learn early in life.
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Lonely People’s Divergent Thought Processes May Contribute to Feeling “Alone in a Crowded Room”
Lonely individuals’ neural responses differ from those of other people, suggesting that seeing the world differently may be a risk factor for loneliness regardless of friendships.
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Lived Experiences Can Be a Strength. So Why the Bias Against “Me-Search”?
Podcast: Questions often emerge when researchers tend to engage in research on topics that are personally relevant for them. How is this type of self-relevant researchperceived? Researcher Andrew Devendorf discusses.
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“So Much Amazing Research”: Scholarship and Science Prevail at ICPS 2023
Nearly 1,500 researchers, students, and others came to the Belgian capital from more than 70 countries and six continents.
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Want More Generous Children? Show Them Awe-inspiring Art
Research is the first to demonstrate that awe-eliciting art can spark prosociality in children as young as 8 years old, motivating them to set aside their own concerns to focus on others. Awe also has physical benefits for children.
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Are You (Still) An Optimist? These Questions Might Help Explain Why
Imagine you’re back in high school — fluorescent lights humming, hard plastic chairs, a classroom stuffy with hormones and anxiety — and you’ve just aced a test. Do you think to yourself, “I guess I got lucky today?” Or does your internal monologue say, “Damn, I’m good!”? Now imagine that you’ve failed the test. Does the voice inside you whisper: “Of course. You’re so bad at this.” Or does it say, “Ugh — you just didn’t study hard enough.” And which of these responses might brand you as an optimist? You might think, for example, that the first response — crediting luck for a good outcome — is a sign of optimism, since it suggests good times ahead.
