Category: Psychology

Baby’s brains find it easier to process their native language.

Even before babies begin to speak, the areas of their brains which plan movements — like that of the mouth — are already activated by speech.

Brain scans show they are cognitively laying the groundwork for their native language.

The findings come from a University of Washington study which scanned the brains of 7- and 11-month-old infants while they listened to snatches of English and Spanish.

The study’s lead author, Patricia Kuhl, explained the significance of the findings:

“Most babies babble by 7 months, but don’t utter their first words until after their first birthdays.

Finding activation in motor areas of the brain when infants are simply listening is significant, because it means the baby’s brain is engaged in trying to talk back right from the start and suggests that 7-month-olds’ brains are already trying to figure out how to make the right movements that will produce words.”

It’s likely that this process of mentally trying to say words contributes to how babies zero in on what will become their native language.

By contrast, before around the age of 8-months, babies respond to all languages in a similar way.

Then, a transition starts to occur as their brains notice that there are particular sounds that are used more often.

In the study, one group of babies was approaching the 8-month cut-off.

For these infants both English and Spanish were equally interesting to the baby’s brains, with the auditory and motor areas springing into action to try and listen to and prepare to reproduce both languages.

In the older group who had reached around 1-year-old, though, the pattern was different.

By this age they have got used to their native language (either English or Spanish in this study), so the brain doesn’t have to work so hard when listening.

In contrast, when the baby hears what has become a non-native language, its brain has to work harder to reproduce it.

Image credit: Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences at the University of Washington

Why framing the debate is such a powerful and subtle device.

Those in power tend to talk about the big picture rather than the details, a new study finds.

By the same token, if a speaker focuses on abstract concepts, this sends the message that they are a powerful person.

For example:

“…a speaker discussing a massive earthquake might either state that 120 people died and 400 were injured (a concrete statement conveying specific details), or that the earthquake is a national tragedy (an abstract statement conveying higher-level meaning).”  (Wakslak et al., 2014)

The conclusions come from six experiments published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (Wakslak et al., 2014).

In one typical experiment, participants read quotations about a political event, each attributed to a different politician.

Some of quotes were expressed in concrete terms and others in abstract terms.

The politicians who used abstract language — like the example above, talking about ‘a national tragedy’ — were rated as more powerful.

The same result emerged across all the experiments conducted in different contexts:

“Use of abstract language that captured the gist or meaning of an event led a speaker to be perceived as more powerful, relative to concrete language that focused on specific details and actions, regardless of whether the speaker was discussing a person, a societal issue, or a product; describing something negative or positive; or saying a few words or several sentences.” (Wakslak et al., 2014)

The study found that two factors were important in how abstract speech conveys power:

• Judgemental: people in power are expected to make judgements about events or to frame them in some way. Abstract language is more often used when judgements are being made.
• Abstract thinker: people who use abstract language are more likely to be abstract thinkers, which is another signal of power.

The authors conclude:

“When people use abstract language, they communicate that they are removed from the action and able to distill the gist or essence of the situation, instead of focusing on the concrete actions that would be most salient if they were ‘on the ground.'” (Wakslak et al., 2014)

Like speaking with a deeper voice, then, using abstract language is a simple way to convey to others that you are powerful.

Image credit: Kheel Center

Three reasons good people do bad things.

When people are in a group they are more disconnected from their moral beliefs, according to new neuroscientific research.

The results come from a study which compared how people’s brains work when they are alone compared with when they are in a group (Cikara et al., 2014).

The study was inspired by a trip to Yankee Stadium in New York made by Dr Mina Cikara, now an assistant professor at Carnegie Mellon University.

On the trip her husband was wearing a Red Sox cap (for non-US readers: the Red Sox are a rival team from Boston).

He was continuously heckled by Yankee fans, so Mina took the cap from her husband and wore it herself:

“What I decided to do was take the hat from him, thinking I would be a lesser target by virtue of the fact that I was a woman.

I was so wrong. I have never been called names like that in my entire life.

It was a really amazing experience because what I realized was I had gone from being an individual to being seen as a member of ‘Red Sox Nation.’

And the way that people responded to me, and the way I felt myself responding back, had changed, by virtue of this visual cue — the baseball hat.

Once you start feeling attacked on behalf of your group, however arbitrary, it changes your psychology.”

When ‘me versus you’ becomes ‘us versus them’

Two reasons why people behave differently in groups are that:

1. they feel more anonymous,
2. and that they feel less likely to be caught behaving badly.

But Cikara and colleagues wanted to examine a further factor: whether people’s moral compass also goes awry when they are in a group.

They did this by asking a group of participants to answer question which gave an insight into their personal morality.

This enabled the researchers to create personalised statements for each of them, such as:

• “I have stolen food from shared refrigerators.”
• “I always apologize after bumping into someone.”

Participants then played a game while inside a brain scanner: once as part of a team and once on their own.

When people played on their own, and saw moral statements related to themselves, their brains showed more activity in a part of the medial prefrontal cortex — an area associated with thinking about the self.

This is normal, suggesting a strong identification with their own morals.

But, when some people playing in group saw moral statement about themselves, they reacted much less intensely, suggesting weaker identification with their own beliefs and moral ideals.

Forgotten morals

In a follow-up test, these people were also much more likely to try and harm members of the other group.

Not only that, but they even seemed to conveniently forget the moral statements they’d heard beforehand.

One of the study’s authors, Rebecca Saxe, an associate professor of cognitive neuroscience at MIT, said:

“Although humans exhibit strong preferences for equity and moral prohibitions against harm in many contexts, people’s priorities change when there is an ‘us’ and a ‘them’.

A group of people will often engage in actions that are contrary to the private moral standards of each individual in that group, sweeping otherwise decent individuals into ‘mobs’ that commit looting, vandalism, even physical brutality.”

Image credit: A Lads Club Escapette

The deadly meteorological consequences of gender stereotypes.

Hurricanes with female names are likely to cause more deaths than those with male names, finds new research from the University of Illinois.

The study examined over 60 years of hurricanes which hit have the US, excluding Katrina (2005) and Audrey (1957), because individually they caused so much damage and loss of life (Jung et al., 2014).

The results showed there were higher death tolls, on average, when the hurricanes were given a female name.

This wasn’t because female-named hurricanes were any more severe; rather that people’s behaviour changed.

Sharon Shavitt, one of authors of the report, explained:

“In judging the intensity of a storm, people appear to be applying their beliefs about how men and women behave.

This makes a female-named hurricane, especially one with a very feminine name such as Belle or Cindy, seem gentler and less violent.”

People unconsciously say to themselves: how could I be killed by a hurricane called Cindy?

In fact, hurricanes are named arbitrarily, alternating between male and female names, and the names tell you nothing about the severity of the storm.

But, if people in the path of the storm are letting its name affect whether they take shelter, what we call it may matter more than we think.

Hurricane Christopher versus Christina

Having trawled through the records, the researchers returned to the lab to test their finding experimentally.

People were given a series of hypothetical storms with male and female names and asked to make judgements about their intensity and the risk they faced.

The results showed that people consistently rated male-named hurricanes, like Hurricane Christopher or Hurricane Victor as more intense and more risky than their female-named counterparts, like Hurricane Alexandra and Hurricane Christina.

Shavitt continued:

“People imagining a ‘female’ hurricane were not as willing to seek shelter.

The stereotypes that underlie these judgments are subtle and not necessarily hostile toward women — they may involve viewing women as warmer and less aggressive than men.”

The irony is that until the late 1970s, hurricanes were always given female names, as they were thought to embody feminine qualities like unpredictability.

This practise — and the sexist reasoning behind it — was quite rightly abandoned in favour of alternating between male and female.

Oddly, though, what we’ve learnt is that we’d be better off naming all hurricanes after men to take advantage of people’s stereotypical views.

The researchers estimate that changing a severe hurricane’s name from “Eloise” to “Charley” could potentially cut the death toll by one-third.

Perhaps the naming of hurricanes is one specific situation where we shouldn’t worry about being sexist,  if being a little sexist is going to save lives.

Image credit: Eric Fleming

Look Ma, no hands!

Could the pilots of the future only have to think their commands to control an aircraft?

Scientists working on an EU project called ‘Brainflight’ have now demonstrated that this isn’t as far-fetched as it sounds.

In tests they had seven people with varying levels of flight experience fitted with electroencephalography (EEG) electrodes, which measure electrical impulses naturally produced by the brain.

They were then sat in a flight simulator and instructed how to ‘think’ their plane around the skies.

The accuracy with which they followed the instructions was high enough to satisfy the requirements for a pilot’s licence.

Remarkably, some of the pilots were able to land the plane under conditions of poor visibility just using the power of their thoughts.

The Brainflight project relies on an algorithm developed by scientists at the Berlin Institute of Technology, which translates electrical potentials from the brain into control commands.

One of the problems the researchers now face is how to provide feedback to pilots.

Normally when a pilot moves the control column there is resistance as the loads increase on the aircraft — much the same as you can feel a car gripping the road through the steering wheel.

A method will need to be developed to provide a version of this kind of tactile feedback to pilots so that they know when they are pushing the aircraft beyond its capabilities.

Tim Fricke, who heads the project at Technische Universität München (TUM), said:

“A long-term vision of the project is to make flying accessible to more people.

With brain control, flying, in itself, could become easier.

This would reduce the work load of pilots and thereby increase safety.

In addition, pilots would have more freedom of movement to manage other manual tasks in the cockpit.”

Image credit: A. Heddergott/TU München

You can tell their DNA is similar because their arms are stuck at the same angle.

Now you can add similar DNA to similar religion, race, income, education, body type and age, to the attributes which people look for in a partner, whether they know it or not.

New research shows that people are more likely to pick a mate with similar DNA, even after taking into account genetic similarities between people in a geographic location (Domingue et al., 2014).

This is the first study to look at similarities in spouses’ genetics.

The study’s lead author, Benjamin Domingue, said:

“It’s well known that people marry folks who are like them.

But there’s been a question about whether we mate at random with respect to genetics.”

For the research, the genomes of 825 non-Hispanic white American couples were analysed to see if their DNA was any more similar than two random people from the same sample.

Across 1.7 million single-nucleotide polymorphisms, they found that there were fewer differences between married couples than two randomly selected individuals.

Previous studies have shown that one of the strongest factors in choosing a partner is educational level.

This study found that the effect of similar DNA was about one-third that of education on mating choices.

Opposites do not attract

Contrary to the common saying, study after study has shown that, on average, opposites do not attract.

There’s little doubt that ‘birds of a feather fly together’: people look for similarities when choosing a partner.

Now we know that this is even true at a genetic level.

Image credit: hafecheese

…but there’s a silver lining for those over the magic age.

New research based on 3,305 players of an online game suggests that the peak age for cognitive motor performance is 24-years-old.

The finding comes from one of the first ever studies to utilise the power of so-called ‘big data’: datasets which are so large that they require specialised computers to crunch the numbers (Thompson et al., 2014).

The game analysed was StarCraft 2, a strategic real-time war game — something akin to speed chess in space.

The data came from thousands upon thousands of hours of playtime, all of which has been collated to look at how long players took to react to their opponents.

The study’s lead author, Joe Thompson, explained the results:

“After around 24 years of age, players show slowing in a measure of cognitive speed that is known to be important for performance.

This cognitive performance decline is present even at higher levels of skill.”

However, there was a silver lining for older people who, despite being slower, managed to keep up with their younger counterparts.

Compared with younger players, the older players were more likely to use sophisticated short-cuts to make up for their slower reaction times.

Thompson continued:

“Older players, though slower, seem to compensate by employing simpler strategies and using the game’s interface more efficiently than younger players, enabling them to retain their skill, despite cognitive motor-speed loss.”

The authors conclude that these results contribute towards a more nuanced and dynamic view of the age-related changes in cognitive performance:

“The veneer of stable competence in mid-life masks genuine adult development; cognitive-motor decline begins even in the midst of continuing brain growth.

Rather than stability, we have lifelong flux.

Our day-to-day performance is, at every age, the result of the constant interplay between change and adaptation.” (Thompson et al., 2014).

These findings are in line with much other research showing that our cognitive powers decline with age.

What’s relatively new is the relatively young age this research suggests the decline starts to set in.

On the other hand, not everyone agrees that this decline is real: these findings are in contrast to recent research claiming that age-related cognitive decline is a myth.

Image credit: cinnamon_girl

How memory works, what visual illusions reveal, the price of happiness, the power of introverts and more…

1. Peter Doolittle: How “working memory” works

“Life comes at us very quickly, and what we need to do is take that amorphous flow of experience and somehow extract meaning from it.”

In this funny, enlightening talk, educational psychologist Peter Doolittle details the importance — and limitations — of your “working memory,” that part of the brain that allows us to make sense of what’s happening right now.”

2. Dan Ariely: What makes us feel good about our work?

“What motivates us to work? Contrary to conventional wisdom, it isn’t just money. But it’s not exactly joy either. It seems that most of us thrive by making constant progress and feeling a sense of purpose.

Behavioral economist Dan Ariely presents two eye-opening experiments that reveal our unexpected and nuanced attitudes toward meaning in our work.”

3. Michael Shermer: Why people believe weird things

“Why do people see the Virgin Mary on a cheese sandwich or hear demonic lyrics in “Stairway to Heaven”?

Using video and music, skeptic Michael Shermer shows how we convince ourselves to believe — and overlook the facts.”

4. Al Seckel: Visual illusions that show how we (mis)think

“Al Seckel, a cognitive neuroscientist, explores the perceptual illusions that fool our brains. Loads of eye tricks help him prove that not only are we easily fooled, we kind of like it.”

5. Barry Schwartz: Our loss of wisdom

“Barry Schwartz makes a passionate call for “practical wisdom” as an antidote to a society gone mad with bureaucracy. He argues powerfully that rules often fail us, incentives often backfire, and practical, everyday wisdom will help rebuild our world.”

6. Benjamin Wallace: The price of happiness

“Can happiness be bought? To find out, author Benjamin Wallace sampled the world’s most expensive products, including a bottle of 1947 Chateau Cheval Blanc, 8 ounces of Kobe beef and the fabled (notorious) Kopi Luwak coffee. His critique may surprise you.”

7. Susan Cain: The power of introverts

“In a culture where being social and outgoing are prized above all else, it can be difficult, even shameful, to be an introvert. But, as Susan Cain argues in this passionate talk, introverts bring extraordinary talents and abilities to the world, and should be encouraged and celebrated.”

8. Daniel Wolpert: The real reason for brains

“Neuroscientist Daniel Wolpert starts from a surprising premise: the brain evolved, not to think or feel, but to control movement. In this entertaining, data-rich talk he gives us a glimpse into how the brain creates the grace and agility of human motion.”

9. Charles Limb: Your brain on improv

“Musician and researcher Charles Limb wondered how the brain works during musical improvisation — so he put jazz musicians and rappers in an fMRI to find out. What he and his team found has deep implications for our understanding of creativity of all kinds.”

10. Helen Fisher: The brain in love

“Why do we crave love so much, even to the point that we would die for it? To learn more about our very real, very physical need for romantic love, Helen Fisher and her research team took MRIs of people in love — and people who had just been dumped.”

Genes which influence social behaviour enable some ‘nice’ people to overcome feelings of fear.

A recent study finds that at least part of people’s ‘niceness’ is in their genes.

The research from the University at Buffalo and the University of California, Irvine, published in Psychological Science, tested the genes of 711 people (Poulin et al., 2012).

They were also asked about their donations to charity, whether they see other people as generally good or bad and other factors that contribute to the idea of ‘niceness’.

The study’s lead author, Michel Poulin, explained the results:

“The study found that these genes combined with people’s perceptions of the world as a more or less threatening place to predict generosity.

Specifically, study participants who found the world threatening were less likely to help others — unless they had versions of the receptor genes that are generally associated with niceness.”

[The nice genes] …allow you to overcome feelings of the world being threatening and help other people in spite of those fears.”

The crucial genes influence receptors for two vital hormones: oxytocin and vassopressin.

Both of these have been linked to social behaviour and may be crucial in how and when humans care for each other.

Poulin continued:

“The fact that the genes predicted behavior only in combination with people’s experiences and feelings about the world isn’t surprising because most connections between DNA and social behavior are complex.

We aren’t saying we’ve found the niceness gene.

But we have found a gene that makes a contribution.

What I find so interesting is the fact that it only makes a contribution in the presence of certain feelings people have about the world around them.”

In this study, ‘nice’ people were able to get over their fears to volunteer their time.

Image credit: Andres Rodriguez

Study finds that two-day-old infants prefer word-like basic linguistic building blocks.

A new study finds evidence that we are born with fundamental knowledge about language, helping to explain one of our greatest abilities.

Researchers in the US and Italy have found that newborn infants between two- and five-days-old already prefer syllables which are more ‘word-like’ over those not usually found in human languages (Gomez et al., 2014).

In the study, the researchers played back ‘good’ and ‘bad’ words to the newborns while using near-infrared spectroscopy to monitor the oxygenation of the blood in their brains.

An example of a ‘good’ syllable is ‘bl’ which is found in many languages around the world: there’s blando in Italian, blusa in Spanish and blink in English, amongst many, many other examples.

In contrast, a ‘bad’ syllable is ‘lb’ which is a much less frequent combination found in low frequencies in few languages (including Russian).

The idea is that we have an inbuilt tendency to prefer particular basic building-blocks of language over others.

In the example above we prefer ‘bla’ over ‘lba’.

The question is whether we are born with this preference or is it something that we learn with exposure to language over time.

The new study supports the idea that these preferences for certain types of syllables are inborn.

Infants who haven’t even learned how to babble yet seem to be born with a sense of how words should sound.

One of the study’s authors, Professor Iris Berent said:

“The results of this new study suggest that, the sound patterns of human languages are the product of an inborn biological instinct, very much like birdsong,”

This helps explain similarities in the structure of many languages, since they are likely based on common inbuilt preference for how languages should sound at a very basic level.

That’s why babies can arrive in the world and be confident that whatever language those around them speak, they will be able to pick it up.

Image credit: Paolo Marconi