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During the Lorenz Eitner Lecture at Stanford, classics scholar Peter Meineck explored how cognitive research methods shed light on the ancient and contemporary theatrical experience. Continue reading “What Can Neuroscience Tell us about Greek Theatre?”
It’s often said that experience is the best teacher, but the experiences of other people may be even better. If you saw a friend get chased by a neighborhood dog, for instance, you would learn to stay away from the dog without having to undergo that experience yourself. Continue reading “Brain circuit helps us learn by watching others”
In order to learn about the world, an animal needs to do more than just pay attention to its surroundings. It also needs to learn which sights, sounds and sensations in its environment are the most important and monitor how the importance of those details change over time. Yet how humans and other animals track those details has remained a mystery. Continue reading “How the brain decides what to learn”
Some conversations are forgotten as soon as they are over, while other exchanges may leave lasting imprints. University of Texas at Austin researchers Sandie Keerstock and Rajka Smiljanic want to understand why and how listeners remember some spoken utterances more clearly than others. They’re specifically looking at ways in which clarity of speaking style can affect memory. Continue reading “Researchers find that a speaker’s clearly articulated style can improve a listener’s memory of what was said”
An innovative collaboration between neuroscientists and developmental psychologists that investigated how infants’ brains process other people’s action provides the first evidence that directly links neural responses from the motor system to overt social behavior in infants. Continue reading “Social thinking in the infant brain revealed”
Neurons in the human brain receive electrical signals from thousands of other cells, and long neural extensions called dendrites play a critical role in incorporating all of that information so the cells can respond appropriately. Continue reading “Electrical properties of dendrites help explain our brain’s unique computing power”
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