New research published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, examines the nuanced relationship between language and different types of perception.

Bilingual Infants Can Tell Unfamiliar Languages Apart

Speaking more than one language can improve our ability to control our behavior and focus our attention, recent research has shown. But are there any advantages for bilingual children before they can speak in full sentences? We know that bilingual children can tell if a person is speaking one of their native languages or the other, even when there is no sound, by watching the speaker’s mouth for visual cues. But Núria Sebastián-Gallés of Universitat Pompeu Fabra and colleagues wanted to know whether bilingual infants could also do this with two unfamiliar languages. They studied 8-month-old infants, half of whom lived in either Spanish- or Catalan-speaking households and half of whom lived in Spanish-Catalan bilingual households. The researchers looked at whether the infants could discriminate between English and French, two unfamiliar languages, using only visual cues. They found that the bilingual infants could tell the difference between the two languages, while the infants who lived in single-language households could not. These findings suggest that infants who are immersed in bilingual environments are more sensitive to the differences in visual cues associated with the sounds of various languages.

Lead author: Núria Sebastián-Gallés

Skilled Deaf Readers Have an Enhanced Perceptual Span in Reading

Though people born deaf are better able to use information from peripheral vision than those who can hear, they have a harder time learning to read. Researchers have proposed that the extra information coming in could distract from, rather than enhance, the process of reading. But no research has actually compared visual attention in reading between hearing and deaf readers.  In a new study, Nathalie Bélanger of the University of California, San Diego and colleagues investigated this issue by measuring the perceptual span, or the number of letter spaces used when reading, of skilled deaf readers, less-skilled deaf readers, and hearing readers. The experimenters manipulated the number of letter spaces that the participants saw while reading text on a screen. They found that, compared to the other two groups, skilled deaf readers read fastest when they were given the largest number of letter spaces, showing that they had the largest perceptual span. Regardless, they were able to read just as fast as skilled hearing readers. Contrary to previous hypotheses, these findings suggest that enhanced visual attention and perceptual span are not the cause of reading difficulties common among deaf individuals.

Lead author: Nathalie N. Bélanger

Detection of Appearing and Disappearing Objects in Complex Acoustic Scenes

The ability to detect sudden changes in the environment is critical for survival. Hearing is hypothesized to play a major role in this process by serving as an “early warning device,” rapidly directing attention to new events. Here, we investigate listeners’ sensitivity to changes in complex acoustic scenes—what makes certain events “pop-out” and grab attention while others remain unnoticed? We use artificial “scenes” populated by multiple pure-tone components, each with a unique frequency and amplitude modulation rate. Importantly, these scenes lack semantic attributes, which may have confounded previous studies, thus allowing us to probe low-level processes involved in auditory change perception. Our results reveal a striking difference between “appear” and “disappear” events. Listeners are remarkably tuned to object appearance: change detection and identification performance are at ceiling; response times are short, with little effect of scene-size, suggesting a pop-out process. In contrast, listeners have difficulty detecting disappearing objects, even in small scenes: performance rapidly deteriorates with growing scene-size; response times are slow, and even when change is detected, the changed component is rarely successfully identified. We also measured change detection performance when a noise or silent gap was inserted at the time of change or when the scene was interrupted by a distractor that occurred at the time of change but did not mask any scene elements. Gaps adversely affected the processing of item appearance but not disappearance. However, distractors reduced both appearance and disappearance detection. Together, our results suggest a role for neural adaptation and sensitivity to transients in the process of auditory change detection, similar to what has been demonstrated for visual change detection. Importantly, listeners consistently performed better for item addition (relative to deletion) across all scene interruptions used, suggesting a robust perceptual representation of item appearance.

New research methods reveal that babies and young children learn by rationally testing hypotheses, analyzing statistics and doing experiments much as scientists do

Very young children’s learning and thinking is strikingly similar to much learning and thinking in science, according to Alison Gopnik, professor of psychology and affiliate professor of philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley. Gopnik’s findings are described in the Sept 28 issue of the journal Science. She spoke about her work in a video briefing with NSF.

Baby Laughter Survey

At Birkbeck Babylab psychologists study how babies learn about world. We believe that the laughter of babies can tell us a great deal about what they are thinking and how much they understand about the world. You can’t laugh if you don’t get the joke and neither does your baby. We believe that what your baby laughs at will change as they grow up. Therefore, we are conducting the world’s first global survey of baby laughter. We would like to know what kinds of things your baby finds funny. Who are the funniest people? What are the funniest songs, sounds, toys and games? What are the funniest parts of your baby’s daily routine?

The survey is anonymous, confidential and takes about 15-20 minutes to complete.

Chocolate makes snails smarter

University of Calgary undergraduate Lee Fruson became curious about how dietary factors might affect memory, Ken Lukowiak was sceptical. ‘I didn’t think any of this stuff would work’, Lukowiak recalls. Despite his misgivings, Lukowiak and Fruson decided to concentrate on a group of compounds – the flavinoids – found in a wide range of ‘superfoods’ including chocolate and green tea, focusing on one particular flavonoid, (-)epicatechin (epi). However, figuring out how a single component of chocolate might improve human memory is almost impossible – too many external factors influence memory formation – so Lukowiak turned to his favourite animal, the pond snail Lymnaea stagnalis, to find out whether the dark chocolate flavonoid could improve their memories.

Parkinson’s could be detected by telephone call

A simple telephone call could help spot the early signs of Parkinson’s disease by tracking subtle changes in patients’ voices years before more severe symptoms emerge, researchers claim.

New technology being developed in America analyses tremors, breathiness and other weaknesses in people’s voices which are believed to be one of the condition’s earliest symptoms.

Experts at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology claim that their computer programme can pick out Parkinson’s sufferers with 99 per cent accuracy simply by analysing their speech.

Dr Max Little, a British researcher who is leading the initiative at MIT, now hopes to determine whether the same results could be produced from a patient speaking over the telephone.

By recruiting Parkinson’s patients and health volunteers to take part in a three-minute telephone call where they will say “ah”, speak some sentences and answer a few questions, he said the system could be programmed to diagnose people remotely, allowing earlier treatment.

Epilepsy in poor regions of the world

Epilepsy is a common disorder, particularly in poor areas of the world, and can have a devastating effect on people with the disorder and their families. The burden of epilepsy in low-income countries is more than twice that found in high-income countries, probably because the incidence of risk factors is higher. Many of these risk factors can be prevented with inexpensive interventions, but there are only a few studies that have assessed the effect of reducing risk factors on the burden of epilepsy. The mortality associated with epilepsy in low-income countries is substantially higher than in less impoverished countries and most deaths seem to be related to untreated epilepsy (eg, as a result of falls or status epilepticus), but the risk factors for death have not been adequately examined. Epilepsy is associated with substantial stigma in low-income countries, which acts as a barrier to patients accessing biomedical treatment and becoming integrated within society. Seizures can be controlled by inexpensive antiepileptic drugs, but the supply and quality of these drugs can be erratic in poor areas. The treatment gap for epilepsy is high (>60%) in deprived areas, but this could be reduced with low-cost interventions. The substantial burden of epilepsy in poor regions of the world can be reduced by preventing the risk factors, reducing stigma, improving access to biomedical diagnosis and treatment, and ensuring that there is a continuous supply of good quality antiepileptic drugs.

Obesity-Related Hormone Discovered in Fruit Flies

Researchers have discovered in fruit flies a key metabolic hormone thought to be the exclusive property of vertebrates. The hormone, leptin, is a nutrient sensor, regulating energy intake and output and ultimately controlling appetite. As such, it is of keen interest to researchers investigating obesity and diabetes on the molecular level. But until now, complex mammals such as mice have been the only models for investigating the mechanisms of this critical hormone. These new findings suggest that fruit flies can provide significant insights into the molecular underpinnings of fat sensing.

“Leptin is very complex,” said Akhila Rajan, first author on the paper and a postdoctoral researcher in the lab of Norbert Perrimon, James Stillman Professor of Developmental Biology at Harvard Medical School. “These types of hormones acquire more and more complex function as they evolve. Here in the fly we’re seeing leptin in its most likely primitive form.”

Concordia student collaborates with Australian neuroscientist to create music based on raw emotions

What does anger sound like? What music does sorrow imply? Human emotion is being given a new soundtrack thanks to an exciting new collaboration between art and neuroscience.

Concordia University researcher Erin Gee is taking feelings to a new level by tapping directly into the human brain, delivering music powered purely by the human body and its emotions. Using data collected from physiological displays of emotion, Gee is creating a software and hardware system that incorporates a set of experimental musical instruments that will perform a symphony of sentiments.

This research could have significant therapeutic benefits for those who have difficulty expressing emotion. Individuals with autism disorders, for example, often struggle to understand the emotions of others. Gee’s robotic technology could be used to teach them how to identify feelings by externalising and exaggerating them into such forms as music.