Scholars link diet, dentition, and linguistics
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University of Miami anthropologist Caleb Everett and former student Sihan Chen used a novel data analysis of thousands of languages, in addition to studying a unique subset of celebrities, to reveal how a soft food diet--contrasted with the diet of hunter-gatherers--is restructuring dentition and changing how people speak. Their findings were published this week in Scientific Reports.
A study from the Network Dynamics Group (NDG) at Penn's Annenberg School for Communication conducted an experiment in which people were asked to categorize unfamiliar shapes. Individuals and small groups created many different unique categorization systems while large groups created systems nearly identical to one another.
The perception of our own voice depends on sound transmission through air (air-conducted) as well as through the skull bone (bone-conducted or BC). The transmission properties of BC speech are, however, not well understood. Now, scientists from Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology report their latest findings on BC transmission under the influence of oral cavity sound pressure, which can boost BC-based technology and basic research on hearing loss and speech impairment.
Parts of the planet that are diverse biologically and culturally are even more diverse than you'd expect. A group of Santa Fe Institute collaborators developed a theory to show why richer environments are also more complex environments, where you tend to find more species and languages.
This study identified racial/ ethnic, sex, age, language, and socioeconomic differences in accessing telemedicine for primary care and specialty ambulatory care; if not addressed, these differences may compound existing inequities in care among vulnerable populations.
A study by a team of Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) psychologists has found a link between extraverts and their word choices.
Scientists in Romania used multiple, complementary imaging techniques to non-invasively study the composition of an aged Jewish parchment scroll. The various analyses can determine the types of materials used in the manuscript's manufacturing, providing historical context for objects of mysterious provenance. The research also offers insights into the item's degradation over time, including indications of previous repair attempts. All of this information helps conservators determine how best to restore such antiques to their original condition.
A female-typical language style promotes the popularity of talks in the digital context and turns out to be an underappreciated but highly effective tool for social influence. This was shown by UZH psychologists in an international study in which they analyzed 1,100 TED Talks.
Talking like a woman at online TED Talks is being "uniquely rewarded" with more views according to researchers, who say female language style is an "underappreciated but highly effective tool for social influence". The researchers wanted to find out which was more predictive of TED Talk impact: a more instrumental and complex male-typical language style or a simpler and more personally engaging female-typical language style.
MIT neuroscientists have found reading computer code does not rely on the regions of the brain involved in language processing. Instead, it activates the "multiple demand network," which is also recruited for complex cognitive tasks such as solving math problems or crossword puzzles.