Is morphology a discrete and independent element of lexical structure or does it simply reflect a fine-tuning of the system to the statistical correlation that exists among orthographic and semantic properties of words? Hebrew provides a unique opportunity to examine morphological processing in the brain because of its rich morphological system.…

We employ a single-trial correlational MEG analysis technique to investigate early processing in the visual recognition of morphologically complex words. Three classes of affixed words were presented in a lexical decision task: free stems (e.g., taxable), bound roots (e.g., tolerable), and unique root words (e.g., vulnerable, the root of which…

According to Bowers, the finding that there are neurons with highly selective responses to familiar stimuli supports theories positing localist representations over approaches positing the type of distributed representations typically found in parallel distributed processing (PDP) models. However, his conclusions derive from an overly narrow view…

Skottun and Skoyles (2009) recently presented a comment on Vernier acuity and magnocellular dysfunctions in fragile X premutation carriers (Keri & Benedek, 2009). The authors concluded that our finding that the magnocellular deficit, as revealed by luminance-contrast sensitivity measurements, is associated with impaired Vernier acuity for…

The left inferior frontal gyrus (LIFG) is crucially has been found to be involved in syntactic processing of various kinds. This study investigates the cortical effects of two types of syntactic processes: (i) Reconstruction in ellipsis (recovery of left-out material given by context, "More people have been to Paris than" [...] "to…

People can appear inconsistent in their intuitions about sequences of repeated events. Sometimes people believe such sequences will continue (the "hot hand"), and sometimes people believe they will reverse (the "gambler's fallacy"). These contradictory intuitions can be partly explained by considering the perceived intentionality of the agent…

We present the case of F.G., a healthy, normally developed 22-year-old male subject affected by a pervasive disorder in environmental orientation and navigation who presents no history of neurological or psychiatric disease. A neuro-radiological examination showed no evidence of anatomical or structural alterations to the brain. We submitted the…

Creativity is a cornerstone of what makes us human, yet the neural mechanisms underlying creative thinking are poorly understood. A recent surge of interest into the neural underpinnings of creative behavior has produced a banquet of data that is tantalizing but, considered as a whole, deeply self-contradictory. We review the emerging literature…

Odor-shock memory in "Drosophila melanogaster" consists of heterogeneous components each with different dynamics. We report that a null mutant for the evolutionarily conserved synaptic protein Synapsin entails a memory deficit selectively in early memory, leaving later memory as well as sensory motor function unaffected. Notably, a consolidated…

Recent theories on the evolution of language (e.g. Corballis, 2009) emphazise the interest of early manifestations of manual laterality and manual specialization in human infants. In the present study, left- and right-hand movements towards a midline object were observed in 24 infants aged 4 months in a constrained condition, in which the hands…

High-functioning individuals with autism have been found to favor visuospatial processing in the face of typically poor language abilities. We aimed to examine the neurobiological basis of this difference using functional magnetic resonance imaging and diffusion tensor imaging. We compared 12 children with high functioning autism (HFA) to 12 age-…

There are many reasons to be curious about the way people learn, and the past several decades have seen an explosion of research that has important implications for individual learning, schooling, workforce training, and policy. In 2000, "How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School: Expanded Edition" was published and its…

In this report, a model was developed for whole brain learning based on Curry's onion model. Curry described the effect of personality traits as the inner layer of learning, information-processing styles as the middle layer of learning, and environmental and instructional preferences as the outer layer of learning. The model that was developed…

Fay and Sam go for a walk. Sam walks along the left side of the street while Fay, who walks faster, starts with Sam but walks to a point on the right side of the street and then returns to meet Sam to complete one segment of their journey. We determine Fay's optimal path minimizing segment length, and thus maximizing the number of times they meet…

In his 2008 Arts Policy Campaign platform, President Obama argued for reinvesting in arts education and reinvigorating the American hallmarks of creativity and innovation. The President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities (PCAH) conducted an in-depth review of the current challenges and opportunities facing arts education. It sought out…