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Based at the University of California, Berkeley, the Greater Good Science Center sponsors groundbreaking scientific research into social and emotional well-being and helps people apply this research to their personal and professional lives. Their website has useful resources for Safe Conversations, Word Acts, and fostering better social relationships.

A machine learning algorithm analyses verbal and non-verbal cues It could correctly identify if someone is suicidal with 93% accuracy Researchers incorporated the algorithm into an app trialed in schools By recording conversations and analysing cues such as pauses and sighs, it could help to flag those most at risk of taking their own life Researchers are developing an app which could help to prevent suicides by flagging those most at risk.

With texting, we tend to play this ridiculous game that revolves around who has the power in the conversation. The person who has yet to respond leaves the other person on tenterhooks, wondering if that was a dumb thing to say, if they were just scared off, if they're really on a date with someone much more interesting right now - any number of possibilities, really.

I'm reminded of my favorite line from Jonathan Franzen's _The Corrections_: "the schizophrenic eyes of the cellularly-occupied".

Science writer Virginia Morell, in her wonderful new book Animal Wise, describes an experiment involving horses and whinnies - whinnies being very like names. She also cites the research of ornithologist Karl Berg, who states that while most people might think, 'Well, all those [bird] calls are just noise, but I think they're having conversations." Berg has listened to so many parrots in so many nests for so long, he has been able to identify that weeks after birth, these little birds begin to use very specific peeps to identify themselves to others. Not only that, they learn the peeping "names" of their parents, brothers, sisters, and use them in conversation, as in, "Peep-duh-dee-Peep, is that you?" Apparently, dolphins also use particular clicks and whistles to designate particular individuals.

This article notes the mutual dependence that both speech/language skills and literacy have on one another. This goes back to the fact that babies who hear more words from their parents often achieve more academically than those who don't converse with their parents as much. Learning anything requires some form of communication and interaction, and without an adequate level of communication, an individual can't learn as effectively.

Author Sheila Heen, along with Douglas Stone, recently wrote a book called Thanks for the Feedback: The Science and Art of Receiving Feedback Well. One of their chapters focuses on a phenomenon called "switchtracking": when "someone gives you feedback, and your reaction to that feedback changes the subject." Heen notes switchtracking is a pattern in feedback conversations "so common that it's instantly recognizable." "The first person stays on their own track. The second person actually smoothly switches to a different topic, which is their own reaction to the feedback, and often the feedback that they have themselves for the first person," Heen says. "They just get further and further apart ... And they don't even realize that they're going in different directions." Four pieces of take-away advice for effective feedback: 1. Try A Post-it We're always trying to get people to pay attention, but there's some research showing that we have a powerful (and affordable) weapon at our disposal: the Post-it note. 2. Assume Positive Intent Assume positive intent when receiving feedback: concentrate on the substance of the feedback, rather than questioning the giver's intentions! 3. To Get Someone's Attention ... Try Whispering In Their Right Ear. People are more likely to comply with a request when it was whispered in their right ear. 4. When Giving Feedback, Flatter First If you can boost a person's self-esteem before giving them constructive criticism, they might be more receptive to it.

"Microbloggers may think they're interacting in one big Twitterverse, but researchers at Carnegie Mellon University's School of Computer Science find that regional slang and dialects are as evident in tweets as they are in everyday conversations."

This commercial is about Progressive, a insurance company. In most of the commercials, they use the "Red Herring" fallacy, bringing an irrelevant matter into the conversation. At the end of the commercial, Flo talks about his feminine looking shoulder bag randomly, which displays the fallacy stated above. I think they do this so observers remember the commercial as informative but at the same time entertaining.

"Children whose parents talked about sets of four to 10 objects that the child could see were more likely to understand the cardinal principle. Using smaller numbers in conversations and referring to objects the children couldn't see (such as "I'll be there in two minutes.") did not have the same results."

Language is universal - wherever there are humans, there is language. Not only do we depend heavily on language for conversation, we use it for archiving those conversations through books, texts and emails. For something so pervasive in human life, it only makes sense that we should try to understand it. "Just because all humans have language does not mean that all language is acquired in the same way," says Scofield, who studies child language development. Nouns, for instance, are typically learned earlier than adjectives.

People have a deep desire to communicate with animals, as is evident from the way they converse with their dogs, enjoy myths about talking animals or devote lifetimes to teaching chimpanzees how to speak. A delicate, if tiny, step has now been taken toward the real thing: the creation of a mouse with a human gene for language.

A new study by Joseph Grenny and David Maxfield, authors of the New York Times bestseller Crucial Conversations, shows nearly everyone has either seen or suffered from a catastrophic comment. Specifically, 83 percent have witnessed their colleagues say something that has had catastrophic results on their careers, reputations and businesses. Here are the top 5 blunders: 1) SUICIDE BY FEEDBACK: You thought others could handle the truth-but they didn't. 2) GOSSIP KARMA: You talked about someone or something in confidence with a colleague only to have your damning comments made public. 3) TABOO TOPICS: What it looks like: You said something about race, sex, politics or religion that you thought was safe, but others distorted it, misunderstood it, took it wrong, used it against you, etc. 4) WORD RAGE: You lost your temper and used profanity or obscenities to make your point. 5) "REPLY ALL" BLUNDERS. You accidentally shared something harmful via technology (email, text, virtual meeting tools, etc).

Many people would rather avoid particular social situations due to that anxious and uncomfortable feeling of striking a small conversation with another. However, this article explains the benefits of making "small-talk" with a co-worker.

Stephen Porges, psychiatry professor and Distinguished University Scientist at Indiana University, where he directs the Trauma Research Center within the Kinsey Institute, speaks about the importance of safety in relationships. Porges' Polyvagal Theory describes how our autonomic nervous system mediates safety, trust, and intimacy through a subsystem he calls the social engagement system. Our brain is constantly detecting through our senses whether we are in a situation that is safe, dangerous, or life threatening. People's autonomic nervous system are designed to perceive threat: a protective, defensive survival mechanism, but a response that can also get us into trouble if we sense that our safety is at risk, causing us to misread the situation. However, humans also have a mammalian mechanism that mediates those gut-level ANS responses. This social engagement system enables us to interpret linguistic, facial, tonal, intonation, and gestural cues, and the intentionality of others. When our body and mind experience safety, our social engagement system enables us to collaborate, listen, empathize, and connect, as well as be creative, innovative, and bold in our thinking and ideas. This has positive benefits for our relationships as well as our lives in general. The takeaways: 1. Safety is paramount in crucial conversations and conflict-resolution. 2. Learning to deploy cues that display love, trust, and engagement in the midst of conflict can help disarm defensive, threat response mechanisms in other people, help restore safety in our social interactions, and reaffirm bonds.

Whether you're networking, new to a job, or at a friend's party, talking to strangers can be a scary, but rewarding, experience. Use the above tips to go beyond empty exchanges and really get to know those you're talking to - without feeling awkward.

Psychology professor Rachel Albert studies babbling, which until recently was considered to be mere motor practice, something babies did to exercise their mouths. Few people thought of it as a vocabulary all its own. But parents, take note: All those repetitive syllables are an important signal. Albert says they tell us that babies are "putting themselves in this optimal state of being ready to learn." Babbles create an opportunity for a social feedback loop - also known as a conversation. And if you listen closely, you can even decipher a babble's four distinctive categories, from the whiny "nasal creaking" of newborns to the more mature bah-bahs and dah-dahs of older babies. But Albert says if you can't tell your "quasi-resonant vocalizations" from your "canonical syllables," don't worry too much. All you really need to know is this: babbling equals learning.