-
What’s Going On In There? How Babies’ Brains Practice Speech
NPR: A baby's first words may seem spur of the moment, but really, the little ones have practiced their "Mamas" and "Dadas" for months in their minds. Using what looks like a hair dryer from Mars, researchers from the University of Washington have taken the most precise peeks yet into the fireworks display of neural activity that occurs when infants listen to people speak. They found that the motor area of the brain, which we use to produce speech, is very active in babies 7 to 12 months old when they listen to speech components.
-
If you want to know if he loves you so, it’s in his gaze
Salon: I’m no songwriter, but I think most would agree it’s sexier to say that love is “in his kiss” as opposed to “in his automatic gaze patterns.” But, unfortunately for soul singer Betty Everett and lovers of “The Shoop Shoop Song,” the latter phrasing is actually more accurate when it comes to telling the difference between love and lust. According to the authors of a new study from the University of Chicago, where a person looks first at a romantic interest — the face, the body — provides a clear indication of that person’s immediate romantic judgements.
-
The Best Way to Make Up After Any Argument
The Wall Street Journal: You had an argument with someone you love. Now what? There is a definite wrong way to make up and go forward after a fight, therapists and psychologists say: Apologize quickly and move on. Instead, it is crucial when repairing a personal rift to address the underlying issue. Fail to reach a resolution on the argument itself—not just the hurt feelings it caused—and you will end up fighting again in the future about the same thing. Even worse: You'll likely end up arguing about the argument. ... In contrast, women "find it more difficult to isolate themselves from the relational context while having sex," says Gurit E.
-
Why Psychotherapy Appears to Work (Even When It Doesn’t)
The Huffington Post: One of the classic papers in the history of psychology is Hans Eysenck’s “The Effects of Psychotherapy: An Evaluation,” published in 1952. The London-based psychologist examined 19 studies of treatment effectiveness, dealing with both psychoanalytic and eclectic types of therapy in more than 7000 cases. His overall conclusion was damning: The studies, he wrote, “fail to prove that psychotherapy, Freudian or otherwise, facilitates the recovery of neurotic patients.
-
That’s So Random: Why We Persist in Seeing Streaks
The New York Times: From time to time, athletes get on a streak. Suddenly, the basketball goes through the net every time, or a batter gets a hit in every game. This blissful condition is often known as the hot hand, and players have come to believe it is real — so much so that they have made it a part of their strategy for winning games. “On offense, if someone else has a hot hand, I constantly lay the ball on him,”wrote the N.B.A. legend Walt Frazier in his 1974 memoir, “Rockin’ Steady: A Guide to Basketball & Cool.” In the 1980s, Thomas Gilovich, a psychologist at Cornell University, and his colleagues did a study of the hot hand.
-
Babies grasp speech before they utter their first word, a study finds
The Washington Post: Babies start with simple vowel sounds — oohs and aahs. A mere months later, the cooing turns into babbling — “bababa” — showing off a newfound grasp of consonants. A new study has found that a key part of the brain involved in forming speech is firing away in babies as they listen to voices around them. This may represent a sort of mental rehearsal leading up to the true milestone that occurs after only a year of life: baby’s first words. Any parent knows how fast babies learn how to comprehend and use language. The skill develops so rapidly and seemingly without much effort, but how do they do it?
