Group items tagged

"Web addicts have brain changes similar to those hooked on drugs or alcohol, preliminary research suggests. ... Dr Hao Lei and colleagues write in Plos One: 'Overall, our findings indicate that IAD has abnormal white matter integrity in brain regions involving emotional generation and processing, executive attention, decision making and cognitive control.' ... Prof Gunter Schumann, chair in biological psychiatry at the Institute of Psychiatry at King's College, London, said similar findings have been found in video game addicts. ... further studies with larger numbers of subjects were needed to confirm the findings." Link to the actual study: http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0030253

"Tweenage girls who spend endless hours watching videos and multitasking with digital devices tend to be less successful with social and emotional development ... The girls' answers showed that multitasking and spending many hours watching videos and using online communication were statistically associated with a series of negative experiences: feeling less social success, not feeling normal, having more friends whom parents perceive as bad influences and sleeping less. ... The survey findings are bad news, given that the 8 to 12 age range is critical for the social and emotional development of girls, and because children are becoming active media consumers at an ever-younger age. ... Higher levels of face-to-face communication were associated with greater social success, greater feelings of normalcy, more sleep and fewer friends whom parents judged to be bad influences. Children learn the difficult task of interpreting emotions by watching the faces of other people, Pea said. ... For the negative effects of online gorging, "There seems to be a pretty powerful cure, a pretty powerful inoculant, and that is face-to-face communication," Nass said."

great video gives you sense of size

This is from a Japanese television show (sort of like America's Got Talent). Sorry, there's no subtitles...but basically, this guy can sing with his mouth closed, and still produce a deep, full, and open sound. And what's even more amazing is he isn't singing in his own voice...he's imitating voices of famous Japanese singers. I thought this video was interesting because we just read an article on how humans produce sounds. I bet you phoneticians would like to study how his vocal tract works...

This is an interesting video that I found about two young kids trying to learn how to pronounce certain sounds correctly in Korean. The title is a reference to the Gyeongsangdo dialect (a Korean dialect); the poster of the video seems to think that people from Gyeongsangdo speak that way, but it is really not true (I know because I speak that dialect). The children are attempting to pronounce the ㅆ sound correctly ("ss" a very hard "s" sound) but instead seem to be using the ㅊ ("ch" sound) or the ㅅ sound (normal "s" sound). They also seem to have a little trouble with the ㄹ sound (a cross between an "r" and an "l" sound), which can be seen when one of the children changes his tongue positioning while saying 쌀 ("ssal" or rice). I'll put up a translation and transcript soon if anyone is interested. Thought it was relevant because of those readings we got last week...

I put up a transcript with a translation, but it got shortened every time I refreshed the page, so I gave up :/

Dr. Geary explains how metaphors are used to veil the true meaning of what one is trying to say in hopes to either deceive a group or to promote good feelings among a population. Consider his examples of Bush's "Axis of Evil" and Obama's desire to extend a warm hand to countries across the globe. This book sounds much like Steven Pinker's lecture for the RSA Animate video, "Language as a Window into Human Nature", and both the video and book aren't too different; both simply look at the same topic in different ways (innuendo vs. metaphor - though these hardly seem different if one were to really think about it). Link to Pinker's RSA Animate: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-son3EJTrU

While looking through videos for my U.S. History project, I stumbled upon this video which I thought contained very powerful language. Word choice, definite statements and crisp imagery are used to show just how serious the attacks have affected America.

forensic linguistics videos

Science Daily is one of my favorite resources for finding current news, videos, scholarly articles, images, and books about language and its intersections with the sciences: neurology, psychology, anthropology. Try typing in keywords for your desired topic.

"American audiences will hear an accent and style surprisingly like their own in its informality and strong r-colored vowels... Meier said audiences will hear word play and rhymes that "haven't worked for several hundred years (love/prove, eyes/qualities, etc.)" Plus a sample video.

Funny Monty Python video on argument not necessarily pertaining to logical fallacies. However, I challenge others to find at least one logical fallacy in this chaotic argument.

"This past December, a new video debunking this claim made the rounds."

"MLK's "I Have a Dream" speech is not only literarily brilliant, its structure follows the presentation form perfectly, by traversing back and forth between what is and what could be, and ending by describing what the new bliss of equality looks like. In addition, MLK carefully chooses phrases and metaphors that resonate deeply with his audience." I'd recommend watching the video: http://vimeo.com/18792376

video archive of gorilla gestures and their meanings