News reports of research into memory October 2002
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You can find links to the journals referred to on this site here: Journal links
October 2002
Earlier
research has indicated cognitively stimulating activities (such as
doing crosswords, playing scrabble, bridge, etc.) may help protect
against cognitive decline (and perhaps even Alzheimers). Now a new
report (not yet published) from the Institute for Social Research at
the University of Michigan supports and extends this research by
suggesting that simply talking helps keep your mind sharp at all
ages. The lead researcher also speculates that, by encouraging
children to develop their social skills, parents and teachers could
also be helping them to improve their intellectual skills. And in
the workplace, instead of encouraging employees to keep their noses
to computer monitors and complete their tasks, effective supervisors
might encourage them to take plenty of time out to socialize.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2002-10/uom-sig102202.php
Women’s superiority in face recognition tasks
appears to be due to their better recognition of female faces. There
was no difference between men and women in the recognition of male
faces.
The study was reported in Brain and Cognition.
Full reference
New
research augments earlier findings concerning the amount and
distribution of gray matter in the brains of professional musicians.
It now appears that musicians also have an increased volume of grey
matter in the Broca's area, an area of the brain involved in the
production of language. A critical factor appears to be the number
of years devoted to musical training - at least for musicians under
the age of 50. The research supports recent suggestions that
musicians process music like an additional language.
The findings were published in the November issue of
NeuroImage.
Full reference
http://news.bmn.com/news/story?day=021031&story=1
We all know attention is important, but
we’ve never been sure exactly what it is. Recent research suggests
there’s good reason for this – attention appears to be
multi-faceted, far less simple than originally conceived. Patients
with specific lesions in the frontal lobes and other parts of the
brain have provided evidence that different types of attentional
problems are associated with injuries in different parts of the
brain, suggesting that attention is not, as has been thought, a
global process. The researchers have found evidence for at least
three distinct processes, each located in different parts of the
frontal lobes. These are: (1) a system that helps us maintain a
general state of readiness to respond, in the superior medial
frontal regions; (2) a system that sets our threshold for responding
to an external stimulus, in the left dorsolateral region; and (3) a
system that helps us selectively attend to appropriate stimuli, in
the right dorsolateral region.
A report on these findings appears in the October issue of
Neuropsychology.
Full reference
Full text of the article available at
http://www.apa.org/journals/neu/press_releases/october_2002/neu164500.html
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2002-10/apa-pda100702.php
A
new study may help explain why
“cognitive” practice of physical actions can be useful (e.g.,
sportsmen or musicians mentally “practicing” their skills). The
study using macaque monkeys found that neurons in the visual cortex
were more active when the monkeys anticipated the occurrence of
predictable events. "These results show that as we practice and
anticipate which events are going to happen, the brain is also
preparing itself."
The study was published in the Oct. 10 issue of
Nature. Full
reference
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2002-10/bcom-bae100802.php
http://research.bcm.tmc.edu/
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