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Internationally adopted children shed light on how babies learn language
Each year, about 40,000 children are adopted across national lines, primarily by families from North America and Western Europe. These joyful occasions mark the growth of new families and also provide the framework for a natural experiment in language development. Although most are infants and toddlers, thousands of older children are also adopted. Typically, these older children lose their birth language rapidly and become fluent speakers of their new language. Jesse Snedeker of Harvard University believes that these older children can help us understand how infants learn their native language. Early language development follows a predictable series of milestones.
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A New Language Barrier: Why learning a new language may make you forget your old one.
Traveling abroad presents an ideal opportunity to master a foreign language. While the immersion process facilitates communication in a diverse world, people are often surprised to find they have difficulty returning to their native language. This phenomenon is referred to as first-language attrition and has University of Oregon psychologist Benjamin Levy wondering how it is possible to forget, even momentarily, words used fluently throughout one’s life. In a study appearing in the January, 2007 issue of Psychological Science, Levy and his colleague Dr.
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Implicit Stereotypes and Gender Identification may Affect Female Math Performance
New research may provide insight as to why, despite progress over the last few decades, women remain underrepresented in math-heavy majors and professions. In an article published in the January issue of Psychological Science, psychologists Amy Kiefer of the University of California, San Francisco and Denise Sekaquaptewa of the University of Michigan point to an interaction between women’s own underlying “implicit” stereotypes and their gender identification as a source for their underperformance and lowered perseverance in mathematical fields.
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Study gives us a new perspective on the powerful.
Walking a mile in another person’s shoes may be the best way to understand the emotions, perceptions, and motivations of an individual; however, in a recent study appearing in the December 2006 issue of Psychological Science, it is reported that those in power are often unable to take such a journey.
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Visual skills can be gained after several years of congenital blindness
Understanding how the human brain learns to perceive objects is one of the ultimate challenges in neuroscience. In 2003, Pawan Sinha, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, launched an initiative with the hopes of shedding some light on the acquisition of visual skills. The goal of his “Project Prakash” is to find, treat, and study congenitally blind children in India. A unique case study that resulted from this project appears in the December 2006 issue of Psychological Science. Dr.
