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thinkahol *

Reverse-engineering the infant mind | KurzweilAI - 0 views

www.kurzweilai.net/se-engineering-the-infant-mind

Reverse-engineering the infant mind | KurzweilAI

shared by thinkahol * on 13 Jun 11 - No Cached
  • thinkahol * on 13 Jun 11
     
    A new study by MIT shows that babies can perform sophisticated analyses of how the physical world should behave. The scientists developed a computational model of infant cognition that accurately predicts infants' surprise at events that violate their conception of the physical world. The model, which simulates a type of intelligence known as pure reasoning, calculates the probability of a particular event, given what it knows about how objects behave. The close correlation between the model's predictions and the infants' actual responses to such events suggests that infants reason in a similar way, says Josh Tenenbaum, associate professor of cognitive science and computation at MIT.
thinkahol *

'Breathing Bear' soothes moms more than infants | Science Blog - 0 views

scienceblog.com/...soothes-moms-more-than-infants

'Breathing Bear' soothes moms more than infants | Science Blog

shared by thinkahol * on 09 Nov 10 - No Cached
  • thinkahol * on 09 Nov 10
     
    A stuffed teddy bear that appears as if it?s inhaling and exhaling was designed by researchers to comfort fussy babies in the crib, but it seems to work even better for their mothers, a new study reveals. According to the mothers? estimates of crying time, babies who spent five months snuggling with ?Breathing Bear? did not cry any less than infants who shared their crib with a regular stuffed bear, say Evelyn B. Thoman, Ph.D., and Claire Novosad, Ph.D., of the University of Connecticut. But mothers of the Breathing Bear babies reported less depression and stress and described their infants as less fussy and difficult.
Erich Feldmeier

Elisabeth Spelke: Large number discrimination in 6-month-old infants - 0 views

www.sciencedirect.com/...S0010027799000669

Neurobiology behaviour biology excellent science

shared by Erich Feldmeier on 21 Jun 13 - No Cached
  • Erich Feldmeier on 21 Jun 13
     
    "Abstract: Babys können rechnen / zählen Six-month-old infants discriminate between large sets of objects on the basis of numerosity when other extraneous variables are controlled, provided that the sets to be discriminated differ by a large ratio (8 vs. 16 but not 8 vs. 12). The capacities to represent approximate numerosity found in adult animals and humans evidently develop in human infants prior to language and symbolic counting."
Janos Haits

Kismet - 0 views

www.ai.mit.edu/...kismet.html

robotics robot MIT AI technology psychology robots ITGS artificial intelligence science

shared by Janos Haits on 16 Aug 13 - Cached
  • Janos Haits on 16 Aug 13
     
    The Sociable Machines Project develops an expressive anthropomorphic robot called Kismet that engages people in natural and expressive face-to-face interaction. Inspired by infant social development, psychology, ethology, and evolution, this work integrates theories and concepts from these diverse viewpoints to enable Kismet to enter into natural and intuitive social interaction with a human caregiver and to learn from them, reminiscent of parent-infant exchanges.
Skeptical Debunker

If bonobo Kanzi can point as humans do, what other similarities can rearing reveal? - 0 views

www.physorg.com/news186670047.html

apes pointing culture learning bonobo

shared by Skeptical Debunker on 01 Mar 10 - Cached
  • The difference between pointing by the Great Ape Trust bonobos - the only ones in the world with receptive competence for spoken English - and other captive apes that make hand gestures is explained by the culture in which they were reared, according to the paper's authors: Janni Pedersen, an Iowa State University Ph.D. candidate conducting research for her dissertation at Great Ape Trust; Pär Segerdahl, a scientist from Sweden who has published several philosophical inquires into language; and William M. Fields, an ethnographer investigating language, culture and tools in non-human primates. Fields also is Great Ape Trust's director of scientific research. Because Kanzi, Panbanisha and Nyota were raised in a culture where pointing has a purpose - The Trust's hallmark Pan/Homo environment, where infant bonobos are reared with both bonobo (Pan paniscus) and human (Homo sapiens) influences - their pointing is as scientifically meaningful as their understanding of spoken English, Fields said. The pointing study supports and builds on previous research on the effect of rearing culture on cognitive capabilities, including the 40-year research corpus of Dr. Duane Rumbaugh, Dr. Sue Savage-Rumbaugh and Fields, which is the foundation of the scientific inquiry at Great Ape Trust. Those studies included the breakthrough finding that Kanzi and other bonobos with receptive competence for spoken English acquired language as human children do - by being exposed to it since infancy. The bonobos adopted finger-pointing behavior for the same reasons, because they were reared in a culture where pointing has meaning.
  • Skeptical Debunker on 01 Mar 10
     
    You may have more in common with Kanzi, Panbanisha and Nyota, three language-competent bonobos living at Great Ape Trust, than you thought. And those similarities, right at your fingertip, might one day tell scientists more about the effect of culture on neurological disorders that limit human expression. Among humans, pointing is a universal language, an alternative to spoken words to convey a message. Before they speak, infants point, a gesture scientists agree is closely associated with word learning. But when an ape points, scientists break rank on the question of whether pointing is a uniquely human behavior. Some of the world's leading voices in modern primatology have argued that although apes may gesture in a way that resembles human pointing, the genetic and cognitive differences between apes and humans are so great that the apes' signals have no specific intent. Not so, say Great Ape Trust scientists, who argued in a recently published scientific paper, "Why Apes Point: Pointing Gestures in Spontaneous Conversation of Language-Competent Pan/Homo Bonobos," that not only do Kanzi, Panbanisha and Nyota point with their index fingers in conversation as a human being might, these bonobos do so with specific intent and objectives in mind.
Walid Damouny

Steadier Traffic Flow Improves Health of Local Infants, Researchers Say - 0 views

www.physorg.com/news177698504.html

PhysOrg.com traffic children birth abnormalities birth defects health medical vehicles fuel

shared by Walid Damouny on 18 Nov 09 - Cached
  • Walid Damouny on 18 Nov 09
     
    "The creation of E-ZPass lanes over the past 15 years has significantly improved the health of newborn babies living near highways in the Northeast, according to a Columbia study. The researchers found that reductions in traffic congestion generated by E-ZPass lanes reduced premature birthrates by 10.8 percent and low birth weight by 11.8 percent among infants born within 2 kilometers of toll plazas. The net effect has led to hundreds of millions of dollars in saved medical costs."
Erich Feldmeier

Spiegelman: Scientists find molecular link to obesity/insulin resistance in mice - 0 views

www.sciencedaily.com/...120927123642.htm

biology health science research

shared by Erich Feldmeier on 29 Sep 12 - No Cached
  • Erich Feldmeier on 29 Sep 12
     
    "For this study, the investigators bred mice lacking TRPV4 or administered a drug to deactivate it. In the absence of TRPV4, white cells turned on a set of genes that consume energy to produce heat, rather than storing the energy as excess fat. This "thermogenic" process normally occurs in brown or beige fat (commonly called "good fat"), which is found mostly in small animals and human infants to protect against cold. When the TRPV4-deficient mice were put on a high-calorie diet for several weeks, they did not become obese, and their level of fat cell inflammation and insulin resistance was lowered. "We have identified a target that, when inhibited, can activate beige adipose tissue and suppress inflammation," said Spiegelman."
Charles Daney

Dogs: Kids in Fur Coats? -- ScienceNOW - 0 views

sciencenow.sciencemag.org/...2

psychology

shared by Charles Daney on 06 Sep 09 - Cached
  • Charles Daney on 06 Sep 09
     
    Dog owners often compare their pets to toddlers; many even treat their pooches like kids. It's easy to label such comparisons sentimental. But a new study suggests that the owners are right. A team of scientists has discovered that dogs behave surprisingly like 10-month-old infants on a classic psychological test--though there is one important difference.
thinkahol *

Deb Roy: The birth of a word | Video on TED.com - 2 views

www.ted.com/...b_roy_the_birth_of_a_word.html

Deb Roy: The birth of a word | Video on TED.com

shared by thinkahol * on 10 Mar 11 - No Cached
  • thinkahol * on 10 Mar 11
     
    MIT researcher Deb Roy wanted to understand how his infant son learned language -- so he wired up his house with videocameras to catch every moment (with exceptions) of his son's life, then parsed 90,000 hours of home video to watch "gaaaa" slowly turn into "water." Astonishing, data-rich research with deep implications for how we learn.
thinkahol *

Straight Talk about Vaccination: Scientific American - 0 views

www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm

Straight Talk about Vaccination: Scientific American

shared by thinkahol * on 13 Sep 11 - No Cached
  • thinkahol * on 13 Sep 11
     
    Last year 10 children died in California in the worst whooping cough outbreak to sweep the state since 1947. In the first six months of 2011, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recorded 10 measles outbreaks-the largest of which (21 cases) occurred in a Minnesota county, where many children were unvaccinated because of parental concerns about the safety of the standard MMR vaccine against measles, mumps and rubella. At least seven infants in the county who were too young to receive the MMR vaccine were infected.
Ivan Pavlov

Can strong parental bond protect infants down to their DNA? -- ScienceDaily - 0 views

www.sciencedaily.com/...140722101912.htm

science news

shared by Ivan Pavlov on 29 Jul 14 - No Cached
  • Ivan Pavlov on 29 Jul 14
     
    Drury, a geneticist, is a pioneer in new research exploring the biological impacts of early adversity on children. She is the first scientist to show that extreme stress in infancy can biologically age a child by shortening the tips of chromosomes, known as telomeres. These caps keep chromosomes from shrinking when cells replicate. Shorter telomeres are linked to higher risks for heart disease, cognitive decline, diabetes and mental illness in adults.
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