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This progress, published in the journal Science, help to optimize biofuel refining techniques Click to continue »
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There are important individual differences in the degree of mastery of a second language, even in people who have lived in a bilingual environment since childhood. Researchers at the Research Group in Cognitive Neuroscience (GRNC) linked to the Barcelona Science Park, have conducted a study to ascertain the reason for these differences, and found that people who are able to perceive a second language like a native are also better when distinguishing the sounds of their own language. However, both groups did not differ when they hear sounds other than speech. The study is published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
The results of this work, “are of great interest to predict an individual’s aptitude for learning languages and protocols and to design programs that optimize successful learning outcomes», explains Begoña Díaz of GRNC, co-authored the study with Albert Costa and Núria Sebastián, Department of Basic Psychology at the University of Barcelona (UB), which also form part of GRNC. The study also involved researchers Carles Escera the Department of Psychiatry and Clinical Psychobiology at the UB, and Cristina Baus, from the Department of Cognitive Psychology, Faculty of Psychology at the University of La Laguna (Tenerife).
To investigate individual differences in speech perception, the study authors evaluated the perceptive abilities of 126 university students born in the metropolitan area of Barcelona, from monolingual Castilian families who learned Catalan when they started compulsory schooling. All of them therefore were born, raised and lived in a bilingual environment. This population is ideal for the study as Catalan has some vowel sounds that are particularly difficult to perceive for most of the Spanish population and / or Castilian-speaking. Of this population, 31 individuals were selected who corresponded to two distinct groups: the best and worst perceiving the sounds of the second language (Catalan). For these 31 individuals were measured the brain’s ability to notice changes to auditory stimuli. This was recorded electrophysiological response to different types of sounds and calculated the amplitude of an electrical wave called the mismatch potential. Since the amplitude of this wave increases with increasing the brain’s capacity for an auditory change, comparing the amplitude of the mismatch potential between the different groups to determine whether there are differences in auditory processing. To assess their general auditory capacity (non-linguistic) all 31 selected participants listened to tones of varying frequencies than composed, the length or the order of presentation. Linguistic auditory capacity was measured by exposure to vowel sounds in the native language, Castilian, and vowels in a language unknown to the participants, the Finn. The results showed similar amplitudes of the mismatch potential for the two groups when the participants heard sounds that were not language. However, when sounds were presented with their own language (Castilian), the amplitude of this wave was significantly greater for individuals who perceived better his second language (Catalan). Reference article: “Brain potentials to native phoneme discrimination reveal the origin of individual differences in learning the sound of a second language”, Begoña Díaz, Cristina Baus, Carles Escera, Albert Costa and Nuria Sebastian-Galles. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), Doi: 10.1073/pnas.0805022105
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The project of Prof.. Dr. Wolfgang Kollenberg is specifically focused on innovative manufacturing processes for new ceramic refractory, for many applications currently rely on these products with a high proportion of carbon whose main drawback is their CO2 emissions.
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 The Sociograph, apparatus to measure emotions at the group level developed in the School of Education and Tourism of Avila by Professor of Evolutionary Psychology Herrador Jose Luis Martinez, has been presented to society Avila in the framework of Science Week a unique opportunity for the ordinary people can bring to a technology that typically is only in university hands.
With electrodes attached to the fingers and watching a projection that neutral pictures alternated with others that could produce empathic reactions, participants in the experiment discovered how to measure the reactions that take a group to certain stimuli, as reported by the expert DiCYT.
“And we will leverage to measure brain hemispheric differences,” explained Martinez Herrador, “to see which area is more active and to see how it reacts to a stimulus type. Thanks to this research, Professor Avila has seen how the right hemisphere is responsible for managing negative emotions. “This hemisphere has many nerve connections with the emotional limbic system,” he clarified.
A more analytical left side
According to him, people who had the left cerebral hemisphere more active tend to be more analytical, while the busiest people in the law would be more synthetic. “For breaking the left hemisphere analyze reality, while the right is what would fix things into reality,” he notes.
In any case, thanks to the research conducted on campus Avila Salamanca University has shown that “people with more active right hemisphere are more emotional resilience, more empathy and be more spontaneous in their behavior , they would notice more when they’re happy, “he says. And on the other side of the balance would reach people with more active left brain “people more rational, more pragmatic and even more seductive, because while people with more activity in the right hemisphere are driven by emotions , which have a more active left rationalize it all. “
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