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Be It Numbers or Words – The Structure of Our Language Remains the Same
It is one of the wonders of language: We cannot possibly anticipate or memorize every potential word, phrase, or sentence. Yet we have no trouble constructing and understanding myriads of novel utterances every day. How do we do it? Linguists say we naturally and unconsciously employ abstract rules—syntax. How abstract is language? What is the nature of these abstract representations? And do the same rules travel among realms of cognition? A new study exploring these questions—by psychologists Christoph Scheepers, Catherine J.
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The Bond: Staying in touch when children go to college
Los Angeles Times: The second in a series on the evolution of the parent-child relationship. The big deadline for high school seniors to choose a college has passed, and parents' thoughts are turning toward the joy of less laundry or the agony of how to pay the bills — and perhaps toward how much they'll be in touch with their sons and daughters come September. It was not so long ago that parents drove a teenager to campus, said a tearful goodbye and returned home to wait a week or so for a phone call from the dorm. Mom or Dad, in turn, might write letters — yes, with pens. On stationery.
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Attention and Awareness Aren’t The Same
Paying attention to something and being aware of it seem like the same thing -they both involve somehow knowing the thing is there. However, a new study, which will be published in an upcoming issue of Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, finds that these are actually separate; your brain can pay attention to something without you being aware that it’s there. “We wanted to ask, can things attract your attention even when you don’t see them at all?” says Po-Jang Hsieh, of Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School in Singapore and MIT. He co-wrote the study with Jaron T. Colas and Nancy Kanwisher of MIT.
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Facebook spreads emotions among friends
San Jose Mercury News: Next time you feel like broadcasting some gloomy tale of woe on Facebook, you might want to think twice. Your friends could catch your feelings. Psychologists have long known that emotions, just like germs, are contagious. People exposed to a person experiencing strong emotions may experience similar feelings, catching them through facial expressions, tones of voice or some other means. But now there is a new means of transmission -- social media. Facebook data scientist Adam D.I.
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Depression linked to negative thoughts
Times of India: A new study has revealed that people suffering from depression get stuck on bad thoughts because they're unable to turn their attention away. Such people keep brooding over a fight with a friend, a divorce or the loss of a parent. Though a majority of the population is able to pull out of the negative thoughts caused by these situations, some fail to do so. This leads them to develop major depression. "They basically get stuck in a mindset where they relive what happened to them over and over again," said Jutta Joormann of the University of Miami. Read more: Times of India
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Mental health issues rise among US troops
Boston Globe: American troops in Afghanistan are suffering the highest rates of mental health problems since 2005, and morale has deteriorated, the Pentagon said yesterday. Military doctors said the findings were no surprise, given the dramatic increase in fighting, which was at its most intense level during the survey period since officials began battlefield mental health analyses in 2003. The grim statistics illustrated the psychological cost of a campaign that US officials say has reversed the momentum of the insurgency in the war-ravaged country. Read more: Boston Globe
