News by Subject Social & Behavior

A new study demonstrates that grammar is evident and widespread in a system of communication based on reciprocal, tactile interaction, thus reinforcing the notion that if one linguistic channel, such as hearing, or vision, is unavailable, structures will find another way to create formal categories.

Music educator Martin J. Bergee thought that if he could just control his study for the myriad factors that might have influenced previous ones - race, income, education, etc. -- he could disprove the notion of a link between students' musical and mathematical achievement. Nope. His new study, published in the Journal of Research in Music Education, showed statistically significant associations between the two at both the individual and the school-district levels.

In countries where academic performance in math is high, students paradoxically tend to have lower levels of interest in the subject. A recent study suggests that this effect is even stronger among girls, potentially explaining why they tend to do slightly less well at math than their male peers in high-achieving countries.

Motivation for language learning is a system of cognitive, emotional, and personality-related characteristics.

Researchers from Yale-NUS College find that viewing interests as developable, not fixed, can help people make connections among diverse fields that others might miss, with implications for innovation. Their research suggests that understanding this can benefit organisations in generating innovative solutions and ideas, job seekers taking on new or wide-ranging responsibilities, and can create a culture for interdisciplinary learning and problem-solving.

An NTU Singapore study has found that one in three Singaporeans who said they were aware of deepfakes believe they have circulated deepfake content on social media which they later found out was a hoax. When compared to a similar demographic in the United States, the study found that those in the US were more aware of deepfakes. More reported sharing content that they later learnt was a deepfake in the US than in Singapore.