Health News

How does the brain learn by talking to itself?

Human beings, like other animals, possess an enormous learning capacity that allows for the apprehension of new sensory information to master new skills or to adapt to an ever-changing environment. However, many of the mechanisms that enable us to learn remain poorly understood. One of the greatest challenges of systems neuroscience is to explain how […]

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Self-perception and reality seem to line-up when it comes to judging our own personality: For most people, how you think of yourself closely matches that of your peers

When it comes to self-assessment, new U of T research suggests that maybe we do have a pretty good handle on our own personalities after all. “It’s widely assumed that people have rose-coloured glasses on when they consider their own personality,” says Brian Connelly, an associate professor in U of T Scarborough’s Department of Management. […]

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Binary bias distorts how we integrate information

When we evaluate and compare a range of data points — whether that data is related to health outcomes, head counts, or menu prices — we tend to neglect the relative strength of the evidence and treat it as simply binary, according to research published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological […]

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Abnormal vision in childhood can affect brain functions

A research team has discovered that abnormal vision in childhood can affect the development of higher-level brain areas responsible for things such as attention. The researchers from the University of Waterloo, University of British Columbia, and the University of Auckland uncovered differences in how the brain processes visual information in patients with various types of […]

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Artificial intelligence helps reveal how people process abstract thought: Study of deep neural networks suggests knowledge comes via sensory experience

As artificial intelligence becomes more sophisticated, much of the public attention has focused on how successfully these technologies can compete against humans at chess and other strategy games. A philosopher from the University of Houston has taken a different approach, deconstructing the complex neural networks used in machine learning to shed light on how humans […]

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Listening to yoga music at bedtime is good for the heart

Listening to yoga music at bedtime is good for the heart, according to research presented today at ESC Congress 2018. Dr Naresh Sen, study author, Consultant Cardiologist at HG SMS Hospital, Jaipur, India, said: “We use music therapy in our hospital and in this study we showed that yoga music has a beneficial impact on […]

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Men and women show surprising differences in seeing motion

Researchers reporting in the journal Current Biology on August 16 have found an unexpected difference between men and women. On average, their studies show, men pick up on visual motion significantly faster than women do. Individuals representing both sexes are good at reporting whether black and white bars on a screen are moving to the […]

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Forget the bling: High status-signaling deters new friendships

When it comes to making new friends, status symbols actually repel people from making friends with us, according to new research published in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science. “Often times we think that status symbols — whether a luxury car like a BMW, a brand name purse like Prada, or an expensive watch […]