Perception News

May 18, 2024

Top Headlines

Singing Researchers Find Cross-Cultural Patterns in Music and Language

May 15, 2024 — Are acoustic features of music and spoken language shared across cultures? Researchers recorded themselves performing traditional music and speaking in their native language. In all 50+ languages, the rhythms of songs and instrumental melodies were ...

Imaging Fibrous Structure Abnormalities of the White of the Eye in Myopathic Patients

May 16, 2024 — Abnormalities in the shape of the sclera, the white of the eye, can cause various complications and lead to blindness. However, techniques to observe the sclera in detail, such as its fibrous ...

Seeing Not Just With the Eyes: Degree of Arousal Affects Perception

May 17, 2024 — The brain modulates visual signals according to internal states, as a new study by neuroscientists ...

Singing Repairs the Language Network of the Brain After a Cerebrovascular Accident

May 16, 2024 — Singing rehabilitates speech production in post-stroke aphasia. Researchers investigated the rehabilitative effect of singing on the ...

Latest Headlines

updated 8:51pm EDT

How Does the Brain Turn Waves of Light Into Experiences of Color?

May 16, 2024 — Perceiving something -- anything -- in your surroundings is to become aware of what your senses are detecting. Today, neuroscientists identify, for the first time, brain-cell circuitry in fruit flies ...

Scientists Want to Know How the Smells of Nature Benefit Our Health

May 15, 2024 — Spending time in nature is good for us. And knowing more about nature's effects on our bodies could not only help our well-being, but could also improve how we care for land, preserve ecosystems and ...

The Crystallization of Memory: Study Reveals How Practice Forms New Memory Pathways in the Brain

May 15, 2024 — A new study has shown that repetitive practice not only is helpful in improving skills but also leads to profound changes in the brain's memory ...

People Without an Inner Voice Have Poorer Verbal Memory

May 14, 2024 — The vast majority of people have an ongoing conversation with themselves, an inner voice, that plays an important role in their daily lives. But between 5-10 per cent of the population do not have ...

What Makes a Memory? It May Be Related to How Hard Your Brain Had to Work

May 13, 2024 — The human brain filters through a flood of experiences to create specific memories. Why do some of the experiences in this deluge of sensory information become 'memorable,' while most are discarded ...

Brain Mechanisms Underlying Sensory Hypersensitivity in a Mouse Model of Autism Spectrum Disorder

May 9, 2024 — A research team has identified the primary cause of sensory hypersensitivity in a mouse model of autism spectrum disorders ...

How the Brain Is Flexible Enough for a Complex World (Without Being Thrown Into Chaos)

May 10, 2024 — Many neurons exhibit 'mixed selectivity,' meaning they can integrate multiple inputs and participate in multiple computations. Mechanisms such as ...

Why Getting in Touch With Our 'Gerbil Brain' Could Help Machines Listen Better

May 7, 2024 — Researchers have debunked a 75-year-old theory about how humans determine where sounds are coming from, and it could unlock the secret to creating a ...

Human 'Neural Compass' Pinpointed in New Study

May 6, 2024 — A pattern of brain activity that helps prevent us from getting lost has been identified in a new ...

Breakthrough Paves the Way for Next Generation of Vision Implants

May 7, 2024 — A group of researchers have created an exceptionally small implant, with electrodes the size of a single neuron that can also remain intact in the body over time -- a unique combination that holds ...

Scent Sells -- But the Right Picture Titillates Both Eyes and Nose, Research Finds

May 2, 2024 — Scented products with relevant images on their packaging and branding, such as flowers or fruit, are more attractive to potential customers and score better in produce evaluations, new research ...

How the Brain's Arousal Center Helps Control Visual Attention Too

May 2, 2024 — Neuroscientists have artificially increased neuronal activity in part of the brain by briefly shining light on genetically modified neurons. They saw that this manipulation selectively enhanced ...

Test Reveals Mice Think Like Babies

Apr. 26, 2024 — Are mice clever enough to be strategic? A neuroscientist who studies learning in humans and animals, and who has long worked with mice, wondered why rodents often performed poorly in tests when they ...

Illusion Helps Demystify the Way Vision Works

Apr. 26, 2024 — Research shows that a certain kind of visual illusion, neon color spreading, works on mice. The study is also the first to combine the use of two investigative techniques called electrophysiology and ...

Network Model Unifies Recency and Central Tendency Biases

Apr. 24, 2024 — Neuroscientists have revealed that recency bias in working memory naturally leads to central tendency bias, the phenomenon where people's (and animals') judgements are biased towards the ...

In the Brain, Bursts of Beta Rhythms Implement Cognitive Control

Apr. 23, 2024 — Bursts of brain rhythms with 'beta' frequencies control where and when neurons in the cortex process sensory information and plan responses. Studying these bursts would improve ...

Eye-Opener: Pupils Enlarge When People Focus on Tasks

Apr. 22, 2024 — Normally, a person's pupils naturally widen (or dilate) in low-light environments to allow more light into the eye. However, in a new study, researchers reported that a person's pupils also ...

Perfect Balance: How the Brain Fine-Tunes Its Sensitivity

Apr. 18, 2024 — A sensitive perception of the environment is crucial for guiding our behavior. However, an overly sensitive response of the brain's neural circuits to stimuli can lead to neurodevelopmental ...

Paper: To Understand Cognition--and Its Dysfunction--Neuroscientists Must Learn Its Rhythms

Apr. 17, 2024 — Thought emerges and is controlled in the brain via the rhythmically and spatially coordinated activity of millions of neurons, scientists argue in a new article. Understanding cognition and its ...

Can Animals Count?

Apr. 16, 2024 — Researchers have made a groundbreaking discovery regarding number sense in animals by confirming the existence of discrete number sense in rats, offering a crucial animal model for investigating the ...

Are These Newly Found Rare Cells a Missing Link in Color Perception?

Apr. 15, 2024 — Using adaptive optics, scientists have identified elusive retinal ganglion cells in the eye's fovea that could explain how humans see red, green, blue, and ...

Everyday Social Interactions Predict Language Development in Infants

Apr. 8, 2024 — Researchers found that when the adult talked and played socially with a 5-month-old baby, the baby's brain activity particularly increased in regions responsible for attention -- and the level ...

The Sense of Smell Is Influenced by Cues from Other Senses

Apr. 5, 2024 — The sense of smell is highly influenced by the cues from other senses, while the sense of sight and hearing are affected to a much lesser extent, shows a new ...

Body Mapping Links Our Responses to Music With Their Degree of Uncertainty and Surprise

Apr. 4, 2024 — Music holds an important place in human culture, and we've all felt the swell of emotion that music can inspire unlike almost anything else. But what is it exactly about music that can bring on ...

Researchers Map How the Brain Regulates Emotions

Apr. 3, 2024 — A new study is among the first of its kind to separate activity relating to emotion generation from emotion regulation in the human brain. The findings provide new insights that could help inform ...

Chicks Show Vision and Touch Linked at Birth

Apr. 2, 2024 — Study reveals that newly hatched chicks can instantly recognize objects with their vision, even if they've only ever experienced them by ...

How the Brain Senses Body Position and Movement

Apr. 2, 2024 — Researchers use neural networks to study proprioception, the sense the brain uses to 'know' the body's movement and ...

I Spy With My Speedy Eye: Scientists Discover Speed of Visual Perception Ranges Widely in Humans

Apr. 1, 2024 — Using a blink-and-you'll-miss-it experiment, researchers have discovered that individuals differ widely in the rate at which they perceive visual signals. Some people perceive a rapidly changing ...

New Software Enables Blind and Low-Vision Users to Create Interactive, Accessible Charts

Mar. 27, 2024 — Umwelt is a new a system that enables blind and low-vision users to author accessible, interactive charts representing data in three modalities: visualization, textual description, and ...

A Decade of Aphantasia Research: What We've Learned About People Who Can't Visualize

Mar. 27, 2024 — People who can't visualize an image in their mind's eye are less likely to remember the details of important past personal events or to recognize faces, according to a review of nearly ten ...