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 post discusses whether or not Koko the gorilla could actually speak and utilize sign language, or if she was just trained to associate certain hand motions with a result without really understanding what it meant.
I think that many of us have heard that swearing can help to improve pain tolerance, but this study shows that only using "real" swear words help. This makes me wonder what makes swear words so bad, and why it is so taboo to say them. I don't think it has very much to do with how rude the meaning of the word is. For example, I can say something like "explosive diarrhea" in class, but I can't say "sh*t". Also, why does text censoring make it better? We all know what the word says.
This article describes how music and language affect each other in the brain, as well as ways that they can influence other aspects of learning. It also describes their similarity in brain activity.