Language-specific differences in number conceptualization

Science has a story about a study looking at the differences between English and Chinese speakers and what parts of the brain are activated in participants during number processing/manipulating tasks. Participants involved in number processing/manipulating tasks showed similar brain activation as has been shown during language processing tasks, where activation occurs in visual-spatial areas in Chinese speakers and language-related areas in English speakers. The authors, and several other comments in this article by people like Michael Posner, suggest that this effect is not due to the differences in the languages themselves, but in the way that language is learned across cultures.

My opinion is that I find it hard to believe that the differences between the areas of brain activation in different language speakers is as cut-and-dry as the authors would leave the reader to believe. I can think off the top of my head of several studies using English speakers that have found modality-specific areas of the brain which were activated given a particular linguistic stimulus and context.

I place this study in the area of similar results of language-specific differences demonstrated by manipulating spatial relationships, arguing for the significance in the way written language is learned (e.g., the work by Anjan Chatterjee et al.) While I think these differences are interesting, I believe that focusing on the way that language is learned among different cultures is not primary to how word concepts are grounded in a person's environment. While mutual experiences in perceiving the world is mostly the same for each individual, there are differences in bodily state, physical size and shape, and unfamiliar objects in different environments that all create more interesting differences in grounding word concepts involved in language learning and comprehension than the way written language is taught in itself. For example, consider eating a fruit you have never seen before in a foreign country. Do you peel it, or dig out the seeds before biting into it? I think that if a person learned the word for that particular fruit during his/her childhood then that representation of how to interact with it is bound to the word concept itself.

Getting paid for publishing

According to Nature's news (subscriber's only), the governments of South Korea, China, and Pakistan are paying scientists to publish their work in high impact journals. Here is what is awarded by country:


South Korea: $3000
China: $250/impact factor point - $50,000
Pakistan: $1000 - $20,000

The amount in the award in some countries vary by institution, and also by the impact factor of the journal of publication.

Another article in Nature stated the ideal position of most scientists:
"[Scientists] are supposed to be motivated by curiosity, by a devotion to finding the truth, by a desire to solve various philosophical or social problems — not by money."
Although this is a belief I have espoused on several occassions, even in the US it is met with a bit of derision and jabs at my naivety. Thus, I just want to say in conclusion that we should not turn our noses up so quickly at the way these other countries offer incentives to scientists. Although the US government does not explicitly give money for publications, there is an air of science being done for the money at many institutions. As the Director of the NIH told members of Congress a few months ago, the amount of grant money given to many institutions in 2003 seemed fuel the ongoing competition of how many cranes an intitution had.

Funding basic research

Because of the FY07 Science, state, justice, and commerce appropriations bill approved last week, there was a lot of coverage on how much funding is going to be available at the NIH, NSF, NIST, and DOE. Especially emphasized are the cuts faced by NASA. However, opinions are mixed concerning how this budget will affect basic research in psychology and cognitive science. Given that I have more information available about the NIH, I will leave discussion of other funding sources for a later date (e.g., the NSF).

According to an article in Science (subscription necessary), the NIH’s budget has been flattened, and the fear is that basic research may not have the same success rate for grant applicants as in previous years. In general, about 30% of grant applications were funded in 2003, whereas it is estimated that only 19% will be funded in 2007 (see Figure 1). The Director of the NIH, Elias Zerhouni, argued that the success rate of grant applications has not dropped off as these percentages would lead a person to believe. The estimated 19% of funded applications in 2007 does not adjust for the increase from 1.2 to 1.5 applications per applicant. Thus, the success rate per applicant is actually closer to 25%.


Figure 1. Success rates of grant applications from 1998 – 2007 estimates. Source via APA

Zerhouni also reported to members of Congress in May that the NIH was doing enough to fund basic research. However, the Office of Science Policy at the APA has argued that there were still areas of research that do not have a “stable home at the NIH”. Research such as group dynamics, risk-taking, decision-making, and the origins of language are areas which continue to be underfunded if funded at all.

Although the budget for the NIH has leveled off, it seems that there is available funding for basic research depending on a researcher’s particular area of interest. It may be a good idea for this topic to be an ongoing debate on this blog as the bill comes to a vote in the House sometime before July 3rd, as well as looking closely at funding for basic research at the NSF and other sources.

Aymara story update

Science has the story I posted about a few days ago on the Aymara. The author briefly discusses the implications of how a different conceptualization of time may have cognitive consequences. There is also an interesting quote from David MacNeill, "'The Aymara seem to equate time with sources of knowledge,' he says. For the Aymara, the forward direction is the source of what's known: what's seen by the eyes, what's happened in the past. Behind, where they can't see, lies the future."

Concerning this quote, I think that the idea that the future is uncertain is not unique to the Aymara, just because they conceptualize it as behind them and thus, where they cannot readily see. One of my studies in the Fall will address the question as it relates to past vs. future events, whether or not seeing is believing.

More pictures of UC Merced

I found more pictures of UC Merced at the UC Merced Share site. Here is one that I liked in particular.

New technique for imaging myelin degeneration

Here is a new study in PNAS on using positron-emission tomography (PET) to mark myelin loss. In brief, disorders such as multiple sclerosis damage the protective layer of neurons, myelin, and consequently the communication between the neurons. Usually fMRI imaging techniques use gadolinium to mark abnormal brain areas in order to highlight the images. According to the authors of this study, fMRI is not as precise at marking demyelinization as injecting C-radiolabeled BMB, a fluorescent synthesized molecule, into the bloodstream. This molecule crosses the blood-brain barrier and bonds reversibly to the myelin, which is then visible in PET scans.

This improvement is very cool, and I would suggest signing into PNAS online access to get the images. Maybe we can work out a deal with them at some point to post one or two once we build this little cogsci community. Anyone know if this would help with Parkinson's disease?

Shy people are more sensitive to reward than outgoing people

A study published in the new issue of the Journal of Neuroscience (link via Science) found that shy individuals show more activity in the reward-associated area of the brain (i.e., the striatum) than outgoing individuals. Interestingly, no differences in amygdala activity was found between the two groups. I suspect that is due to the fact that the risk-taking task was not salient to the types of things that shy people fear. If anyone has evidence to the contrary I would be interested in reading about it.

Study on time and gesture in the Aymara gets Digg.com recognition

One of my priorities for my first year at UC Merced is to study how people perceive time. Time is my favorite pet project and I hope others in the department will have some feedback on my experiments. Therefore, I wanted to point the scsgrads toward some recent cross-linguistic work on language and time in the Aymara tribe in Northern Chile.

The reason why Rafael Núñez and Eve Sweetser are studying this group is because they hypothesize that they have a reversed metaphorical mapping of time. In contrast to most cultures where the past is behind and the future is ahead, the Aymara perceive the future behind and the past ahead of themselves. The differences in gestures among the Aymara and most other cultures are indeed interesting, however, what I will be presenting this Fall will give conceptual metaphor theory some trouble and at the same time provide a stronger basis regarding how embodiment theory handles time as well as other abstract concepts.

I also would like to encourage readers to read the comments on digg and please send me an email or post any news or articles on time.

Nonviral DNA vaccine shows promise of a safe treatment for Alzheimers disease

Scientists in Japan have found a nonviral DNA vaccine that reduces the deposition of amyloid peptides, or brain plaque, associated with Alzheimers disease without the risk of meningoencephalitis. The article appears in the latest issue of PNAS (thanks to Slashdot for the link). In mice these researchers were able to reduce the amount of amyloid peptides by 50% at 18 months of age. Cross your fingers for the clinical trials with humans.

The coffee-then-beer routine may protect liver

This article from Science Magazine is just too cool. According to Arthur Klatsky and colleagues at the Kaiser Permanente Medical Care Program in Oakland, California, people who drink a lot of coffee, and also a lot of alcohol are less 80% less likely to get cirrhosis of the liver compared to others who have consumer similar amount of alcohol. Surprisingly, they point to the significantly lower enzymes in the blood of excessive coffee/beer drinkers as a evidence to support the hypothesis that coffee protects the liver. Furthermore, caffeine was ruled out as a protectant factor, because excessive tea drinkers did not significantly reduce the risk of cirrhosis.

NSF's IGERT program posts embarassing minority participation statistics

The Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (IGERT) program, developed by the NSF in part to attract more minority students, is even more underrepresentative than the national graduate pool average in science and engineering. This article from Science magazine shows that minority groups (defined as African Americans, Hispanics, and Native Americans) and women were enrolled in the IGERT program at a rate of 9% and 35% respectively, compared with 12% and 38% nationwide. The problem, according to Abt Associates in Bethesda, is the lack of focus on recruitment.

The Union of Concerned Scientists offer a $500 top prize for their Science Idol contest

A group calling themselves the Union of Concerned Scientists is holding a contest for the best political cartoon on the topic of misuse or abuse of science for political reasons. Glad someone is getting organized about this important issue, which affects all of us... and they are doing it in a way that is not too schwer (sorry left caudate kicked in).

The first language related post on this blog!

As a moderately skilled German-English bilingual, I found this article appearing in the latest issue of Science interesting. According to Crinion et al. (2006), while the same language-related areas of the brain in proficient bilinguals are activated irrespective of the language used, they report that the left caudate plays an important role in monitoring and controlling language in use. Furthermore, these findings extended to three different bilingual populations.

Comments:

1. I do not have a problem with a priming study saying that the difference lies in the attention to context and not semantic representation (whatever that is).

2. At the sentence level, I would expect to find language-specific differences in what is being attended to in various contexts depending on what is marked in a particular language vs. another.

Search committee for the new UC Merced Chancellor is formed

On August 31st Chancellor Carol Tomlinson-Keasey will step down, and return to her academic pursuits in the Social and Cognitive Sciences department. It will be interesting to see in what capacity. For example, will she be recruiting graduate students to work with her? The Sun-Star wrote that she will be on a 1-year academic leave, however, the UC Merced site wrote that she will be returning to teaching and scholarship although it did not state when that would be.

The news today in the Merced Sun-Star and also on the UC Merced news and events site is that the UC President Robert Dynes has formed the search committee for the new Chancellor. The 14 member committee will meet at some point in the next two weeks, and there will be a public announcement. This meeting will be an informal dinner where the members get to meet one another. Of the three UC Merced faculty selected, Dunya Ramicova, department of social sciences, humanities and arts is our closest contact. A second alternative contact might be, Gyami Shrestha, who is our Graduate Students Association representative. Since the decision on the new Chancellor will be made by the end of July, we need to contact our representatives with any of our wishes or concerns as soon as possible. It might even be better if we draft a formal letter together to send to one or both of these individuals. If anyone has an opinion about the search for then new Chancellor, and does not want to comment publicly on the blog, then please email me individually.

No disrespect...well maybe a little

For those of us interested in group dynamics (e.g., Justin), I found an article about ingroup social behavior. It seems that if an ingroup member is disrespected by other members in the group, then that member will work harder for the group. Further the investigators noted that the discrespected member is not working more to climb the social ladder in the group, but instead to "assert the worth of the self separately from the group." I wonder what keeps the disrespected member in the group given that the motivation for working harder is to stand out.

Nature's peer review blog

Nature has several blogs I discovered recently. One of which is a debate, or forum, on the topic of peer review. They are even trying out an alternative publishing track where authors can post their manuscripts as part of Nature's online content. As I understand it the idea is that it is posted as a draft, and experts (possibly nonexperts) can post their reviews of it. It's nice to see that Nature is pushing reform of the publication/peer review process. According to Nature, 83% of the submitted articles to them are rejected without peer review, and those authors should be given an alternative route to get their work out to the public.

Added links

I updated the site to include several more links in the sidebar. First, a link to local news in Merced. If there are better sources of online news please let me know. Also, here is the rss feed for the Merced Sunstar for those of you like me, who like to collect them. Next, I added a link to the UC Merced events site. Lastly, a link to the events calendar I also added, and hopefully it will continue to work as the calendar changes. We shall see. If anyone else has links for local news and UC news then add it to the template or send it to me to add.