Older news items (pre-2010) brought over from the old website
What I was doing vs. what I did: How verb aspect influences memory and behavior
A new study reveals that the way a statement is phrased (and specifically, how the verbs are used), affects our memory of an event being described and may also influence our behavior. The study involved volunteers doing a word game and being asked to stop and describe what they had been doing, using either the imperfect (e.g., I was solving word puzzles) or perfect (e.g., I solved word puzzles) tense. The volunteers then completed a memory test (for the word game) or a word game which was similar to the first one they had worked on. Those who had described their behavior in the imperfect tense were able to recall more specific details of their experience compared to volunteers who had described their behavior in the perfect tense; they also performed better on the second word game and were more willing to complete the task. It seems likely that use of the perfect encouraged people to see the task as completed, and thus less likely to spend more time on it, either mentally or physically. The effects did however decay over time.
[676] Hart, W., & Albarracín D.
(2009). What I was doing versus what I did: verb aspect influences memory and future actions.
Psychological Science: A Journal of the American Psychological Society / APS. 20(2), 238 - 244.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-03/afps-wiw031009.php
How alliteration helps memory
Previous studies have shown that alliteration can act as a better tool for memory than both imagery and meaning. Now a series of experiments explains why and demonstrates the effect occurs whether you read aloud or silently, and whether the text is poetry or prose. The memory-enhancing property of alliteration appears to occur because the alliterative cues reactivated readers' memories for earlier words that were similar sounding. Alliteration, then, is most powerful when the same alliterative sounds are repeated throughout the text.
[1408] Lea, B. R., Rapp D. N., Elfenbein A., Mitchel A. D., & Romine R S.
(2008). Sweet silent thought: alliteration and resonance in poetry comprehension.
Psychological Science: A Journal of the American Psychological Society / APS. 19(7), 709 - 716.
http://www.physorg.com/news136632182.html
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-07/afps-tpo073008.php
Connection between language and movement
A study of all three groups of birds with vocal learning abilities – songbirds, parrots and hummingbirds – has revealed that the brain structures for singing and learning to sing are embedded in areas controlling movement, and areas in charge of movement share many functional similarities with the brain areas for singing. This suggests that the brain pathways used for vocal learning evolved out of the brain pathways used for motor control. Human brain structures for speech also lie adjacent to, and even within, areas that control movement. The findings may explain why humans talk with our hands and voice, and could open up new approaches to understanding speech disorders in humans. They are also consistent with the hypothesis that spoken language was preceded by gestural language, or communication based on movements. Support comes from another very recent study finding that mice engineered to have a mutation to the gene FOXP2 (known to cause problems with controlling the formation of words in humans) had trouble running on a treadmill.
Relatedly, a study of young children found that 5-year-olds do better on motor tasks when they talk to themselves out loud (either spontaneously or when told to do so by an adult) than when they are silent. The study also showed that children with behavioral problems (such as ADHD) tend to talk to themselves more often than children without signs of behavior problems. The findings suggest that teachers should be more tolerant of this kind of private speech.
[436] Feenders, G., Liedvogel M., Rivas M., Zapka M., Horita H., Hara E., et al.
(2008). Molecular Mapping of Movement-Associated Areas in the Avian Brain: A Motor Theory for Vocal Learning Origin.
PLoS ONE. 3(3), e1768 - e1768.
[1235] Winsler, A., Manfra L., & Diaz R. M.
(2007). "Should I let them talk?": Private speech and task performance among preschool children with and without behavior problems.
Early Childhood Research Quarterly. 22(2), 215 - 231.
http://www.physorg.com/news124526627.html
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=song-learning-birds-shed
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-03/gmu-pkd032808.php
Kids learn more when mother is listening
Research has already shown that children learn well when they explain things to their mother or a peer, but that could be because they’re getting feedback and help. Now a new study has asked 4- and 5-year-olds to explain their solution to a problem to their moms (with the mothers listening silently), to themselves or to simply repeat the answer out loud. Explaining to themselves or to their moms improved the children's ability to solve similar problems, and explaining the answer to their moms helped them solve more difficult problems — presumably because explaining to mom made a difference in the quality of the child's explanations.
Rittle-Johnson, B., Saylor, M. & Swygert, K.E. 2008. Learning from explaining: Does it matter if mom is listening? Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, In press.
http://www.physorg.com/news120320713.html
Poetry as a memory and concentration aid
A research group at Dundee and St Andrews universities claim poems exercise the mind more than a novel. They found poetry generated far more eye movement, and also that people read poems more slowly, concentrating and re-reading individual lines more than they did with prose. Imaging also showed greater levels of cerebral activity when people listened to poems being read aloud. Interestingly, they also found this was true even when the poem and prose text had identical content; it appears people read poems in a different way than prose. The researchers suggest the findings have implications for the way English literature is taught in schools, and may be helpful for children with certain learning difficulties, or even age-related memory problems.
Carminati, M. N., Stabler, J., Roberts, A. M., & Fischer, M. H. (2006). Readers' responses to sub-genre and rhyme scheme in poetry. Poetics, 34(3), 204-218.
http://news.scotsman.com/arts.cfm?id=352752005
Support for labeling as an aid to memory
A study involving an amnesia-inducing drug has shed light on how we form new memories. Participants in the study participants viewed words, photographs of faces and landscapes, and abstract pictures one at a time on a computer screen. Twenty minutes later, they were shown the words and images again, one at a time. Half of the images they had seen earlier, and half were new. They were then asked whether they recognized each one. For one session they were given midazolam, a drug used to relieve anxiety during surgical procedures that also causes short-term anterograde amnesia, and for one session they were given a placebo.
It was found that the participants' memory while in the placebo condition was best for words, but the worst for abstract images. Midazolam impaired the recognition of words the most, impaired memory for the photos less, and impaired recognition of abstract pictures hardly at all. The finding reinforces the idea that the ability to recollect depends on the ability to link the stimulus to a context, and that unitization increases the chances of this linking occurring. While the words were very concrete and therefore easy to link to the experimental context, the photographs were of unknown people and unknown places and thus hard to distinctively label. The abstract images were also unfamiliar and not unitized into something that could be described with a single word.
[1216] Reder, L. M., Oates J. M., Thornton E. R., Quinlan J. J., Kaufer A., & Sauer J.
(2006). Drug-Induced Amnesia Hurts Recognition, but Only for Memories That Can Be Unitized.
Psychological science : a journal of the American Psychological Society / APS. 17(7), 562 - 567.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/07/060719092800.htm
Language cues help visual learning in children
A study of 4-year-old children has found that language, in the form of specific kinds of sentences spoken aloud, helped them remember mirror image visual patterns. The children were shown cards bearing red and green vertical, horizontal and diagonal patterns that were mirror images of one another. When asked to choose the card that matched the one previously seen, the children tended to mistake the original card for its mirror image, showing how difficult it was for them to remember both color and location. However, if they were told, when viewing the original card, a mnemonic cue such as ‘The red part is on the left’, they performed “reliably better”.
The paper was presented by a graduate student at the 17th annual meeting of the American Psychological Society, held May 26-29 in Los Angeles.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-05/jhu-lc051705.php