Group items tagged

We use language every day to express our emotions. This article explores whether or not language has the ability to affect what and how we feel. Two new studies from Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, explore how interaction between language and emotion influences our well-being.

whether verbalizing a current emotional experience, even when that experience is negative, might be an effective method for treating for people with spider phobias

We use language every day to express our emotions, but can this language actually affect what and how we feel? Two new studies from Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, explore the ways in which the interaction between language and emotion influences our well-being.

This article talks about the disadvantage low-income children face in regards to language acquisition. Studies show that children living in low-income areas in comparison to children from a higher-income area have an inferior knowledge of language and it sets them up for the same result when they're grown. This is because the level language they hear at home is subpar and when they go to school, the schools also lack the teaching for them to receive an adequate education. They're stuck in a paradox of growing up with insufficient schooling, then unable to advance to greater educational experiences because of it.

Did you cringe or feel super uncomfortable reading any of the words in the title? Well, if you did, you're not alone. It's actually a real and common feeling called word aversion. In fact, researchers say that 20% of the population equate hearing the word "moist" to hearing fingernails on a chalkboard. In this article, Paul Thibodeau of Oberlin College tests his hypotheses toward word aversions with a language experiment. One of his explanations for the origin of word aversion is the word's phonological properties. Another, is that the word has to do with concepts people tend to associate with that word. Read this article to learn about Dr. Thibodeau's results from conducting five experiments to provide data for these two competing explanations.

This research article was published to the Journal of Experimental Psychology, but this experiment did include linguistics. The experiments purpose was to see if more engaged working memory could quickly determine whether a word was really a word, thus the effect of the working memory on semantic meaning. They found that a high working memory load impaired the prime and task efficiency.

Some 50 years ago, the renowned linguist Roman Jakobson pointed out a crucial fact about differences between languages in a pithy maxim: "Languages differ essentially in what they must convey and not in what they may convey." This maxim offers us the key to unlocking the real force of the mother tongue: if different languages influence our minds in different ways, this is not because of what our language allows us to think but rather because of what it habitually obliges us to think about. When your language routinely obliges you to specify certain types of information, it forces you to be attentive to certain details in the world and to certain aspects of experience that speakers of other languages may not be required to think about all the time. And since such habits of speech are cultivated from the earliest age, it is only natural that they can settle into habits of mind that go beyond language itself, affecting your experiences, perceptions, associations, feelings, memories and orientation in the world.

This article addresses the controversy behind swearing around kids. There was a linguist who used to be a massive swearer, but he noticed that his linguistic tendencies and language style changed once he had kids. He decided to do a study with college students regarding their responses to swearing in lectures (since swearing around kids would be considered unethical). He addressed two types of profanity in this study; swearing and slurs. He found that slurs generated a negative reaction to the people at whom the slurs were about (Black people, gay people, etc.), but cussing didn't have an impact.

This article explains the controversy behind swearing around kids. A professor from UC San Diego explored this topic due to his own self interest. As a lover of profanity, he seems to have seen himself change his language while being around his own kids. In a experiment conducted on college students, he came across profanity as slurs and cussing. Slurs created a negative reaction to those that the slurs were about that consisted of gender preferences and skin color, but swearing didn't seem to show.

This article explores the Japanese concept of natsukashii: a Japanese word used when something evokes a fond memory from your past. It's a word you exclaim as a smile creeps across your face. For instance, when you hear a song you loved as a teenager, or when you come across an old train ticket stub in your pocket. In some cultures, nostalgia is often full of sadness. But natsukashii - which derives from the verb "natsuku", which means "to keep close and become fond of" - indicates joy and gratitude for the past rather than a desire to return to it. In Japan, natsukashii is a reminder that you are fortunate to have had the experiences you've had in life. The fact that you cannot return to those experiences makes them all the more poignant.

This is a comprehensive review that talks about how television affects language learning and vocabulary building in young children. They cite lots of experiments and books related to this topic.

Lera Boroditsky, cognitive science professor at UC San Diego notes, "...a growing body of research is documenting how experience with language radically restructures the brain. People who were deprived of access to language as children (e.g., deaf individuals without access to speakers of sign languages) show patterns of neural connectivity that are radically different from those with early language exposure and are cognitively different from peers who had early language access. The later in life that first exposure to language occurs, the more pronounced and cemented the consequences. Further, speakers of different languages develop different cognitive skills and predispositions, as shaped by the structures and patterns of their languages. Experience with languages in different modalities (e.g., spoken versus signed) also develops predictable differences in cognitive abilities outside the boundaries of language. For example, speakers of sign languages develop different visuospatial attention skills than those who only use spoken language. Exposure to written language also restructures the brain, even when acquired late in life. Even seemingly surface properties, such as writing direction (left-to-right or right-to-left), have profound consequences for how people attend to, imagine, and organize information. The normal human brain that is the subject of study in neuroscience is a "languaged" brain. It has come to be the way it is through a personal history of language use within an individual's lifetime. It also actively and dynamically uses linguistic resources (the categories, constructions, and distinctions available in language) as it processes incoming information from across the senses.

This post discusses the Chinese Room thought experiment, which examines whether or not computers are actually able to understand us and our words, or if they're just stringing together certain words by association.

This New York Post article discusses strategies to tell when someone is lying. It provides tips on how to detect a liar, like what details they won't be able to provide. It also discusses a study conducted by the University of Amsterdam. This study describes nine experiments where 1,445 people needed to determine whether handwritten letters, videos, and interviews, both pre-recorded and live, were discussing true or false information. It also discusses the accuracy of polygraphs and how our intuition and attention to detail can help us determine if someone is being truthful or not.

This article explains Trinidad Creole English, or TCE, from the perspective of a native TCE speaker. Karel Mc Intosh demonstrates her passion for TCE along with the challenges that come with it. TCE speakers love their "broken English." It is a part of their culture and identity. Although it is a comfortable way of conversing with each other, TCE speakers are looked down upon by those who do not understand it and are not used to it. This causes many TCE speakers to code switch, which means speaking with an accent in relaxed settings and speaking proper English in more formal settings. Intosh describes her experiences as a TCE speaker and states her opinion on the negative perception that follows it.

Psychologist Russell Hurlburt's research reveals that our inner experiences encompass more than just verbal thoughts. It includes images, emotions, sensations, and unsymbolized thinking. Despite ongoing questions and challenges in researching inner experiences, developing awareness of one's thoughts can have personal benefits.

This article talks about second language acquisition, and a higher efficacy rate in those who are fully immersed in the language they're learning. The study concluded that those in bilingual immersion programs or study-abroads exhibit higher levels of motivation to learn the language due to a desire to assimilate.

Lying words: predicting deception from linguistic styles.

Brain-imaging studies have shown that music activates many diverse parts of the brain, including an overlap in where the brain processes music and language. Brains of people exposed to even casual musical training have an enhanced ability to generate the brain wave patterns associated with specific sounds, be they musical or spoken, said study leader Nina Kraus, director of the Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory at Northwestern University in Illinois. Musicians have subconsciously trained their brains to better recognize selective sound patterns, even as background noise goes up. In contrast, people with certain developmental disorders, such as dyslexia, have a harder time hearing sounds amid the din. Musical experience could therefore be a key therapy for children with dyslexia and similar language-related disorders. Harvard Medical School neuroscientist Gottfried Schlaug has found that stroke patients who have lost the ability to speak can be trained to say hundreds of phrases by singing them first. Schlaug demonstrated the results of intensive musical therapy on patients with lesions on the left sides of their brains, those areas most associated with language. Before the therapy, these stroke patients responded to questions with largely incoherent sounds and phrases. But after just a few minutes with therapists, who asked them to sing phrases and tap their hands to the rhythm, the patients could sing "Happy Birthday," recite their addresses, and communicate if they were thirsty. "The underdeveloped systems on the right side of the brain that respond to music became enhanced and changed structures," Schlaug said at the press briefing.

Short exerts from multiple different experiments involving music and the brain.

New brain imaging research at Emory University reveals that a region of the brain important for sensing texture through touch, the parietal operculum, is also activated when someone listens to a sentence with a textural metaphor. The same region is not activated when a similar sentence expressing the meaning of the metaphor is heard.

A in depth formal write up of the experiment ran to test the effects of cellphones and data collected.

A woman shares her experiences with depression, and how it affected her motor skills.