Listen & Learn Blog

I’ve often been accused of having selective hearing, particularly when it comes to being asked to do things I’d rather not do.

Scientists have now explained how selective hearing works – the real kind though, not the type I practice! Selective hearing is the way in which people can tune out a noisy environment and just listen to a single speaker – your date in a crowded bar, for example. It’s also known as the “cocktail party effect”.

Researchers from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) worked with three patients who were undergoing brain surgery for severe epilepsy. They took brain recordings and decoded them using an algorithm, which showed that the cortex has the ability to reflect just what we really want or need to hear.

The findings help scientists understand how the human brain processes language, which could have some major effects for other research.

An average person can walk into a noisy room and have a private conversation with relative ease — as if all the other voices in the room were muted. In fact, said Mesgarani, an engineer with a background in automatic speech recognition research, the engineering required to separate a single intelligible voice from a cacophony of speakers and background noise is a surprisingly difficult problem.

Speech recognition, he said, is “something that humans are remarkably good at, but it turns out that machine emulation of this human ability is extremely difficult.” (Source: Science Daily)

A new study has revealed that pygmy goats have accents.

Their accent is based on the group or “crèche” they were brought up in, rather than genetics, as was previously thought. Researchers from the University of London believe that the goats are displaying the first signs of evolutionary development in language. As goat kids age, their calls become similar to other goat kids in their crèche.

“We found the pitch of the call slightly different,” said Dr. Alan McElligott of Queen Mary’s School of Biological and Chemical Sciences at the University of London.

Though you may need a trained ear to tell the difference.

“I’m sure that if a goat listened to a person, they probably couldn’t tell the difference between a Boston accent and a New York accent,” Dr. McElligott quipped. (Source: WBUR)

The next stage of development is imitation, and scientists believe that one day animals may be able to develop complex language like humans. Listen to the goat calls over at the WBUR website.

I’m currently in South Carolina, where there is a lot of coverage of the Republican presidential nominee process. This reminded me there’s an election this year, and got me wondering what new words the election may bring.

The US News & World Report has some political words/phrases as some of their 10 new words learned in 2011.

Supercommittee (noun)

Origin: U.S. debt ceiling crisis

1. Colloquial term for Congress’ Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, formed to forge bipartisan agreement around the debt-ceiling crisis. 2. Sometimes used ironically; given the committee’s ultimate failure, “super” suddenly seemed like an unfortunate misnomer.

Endgame (noun)

First known usage: 1881; recent notable usage: countless news articles about the Europe sovereign debt crisis.

1. The final actions in a larger process. 2. The eagerly-awaited roadmap for how the European sovereign debt crisis will play out, thus allowing the rest of the world to breathe easily again.

“Oops.” (interjection)

First known usage: 1933; recent notable usage: Rick Perry

1. Expression typically expressing dismay or an apology, often at a mistake. 2. The sound of one of the biggest presidential debate gaffes ever.

I wonder if these will continue to be used this year? Whether they are or not, I’m sure the election will throw up some interesting new phrases.

Hanukkah is nearly over for this year, but there’s still time to consider how it’s spelt: Chanukah or Hanukkah?

The Jewish Festival of Lights apparently has no “correct” spelling – it is a transliteration of a Hebrew word into English. Rabbi Daniel Zemel of Washington, DC was asked by NPR about the spelling, and this is what he had to say:

“There’s several different difficult letters in terms of the transliteration,” he says. “There’s the (Hebrew spoken), there’s the (Hebrew spoken) and there’s the (Hebrew spoken), then there’s the (Hebrew spoken) at the end. And all of them have legitimately different variations on how to properly transliterate them.” (NPR.org)

The Rabbi also said he had to attend a committee at his synagogue to agree on which spelling would be put on their publicity materials – they went with C-H-A-N-U-K-K-A-H.

The ampersand  is a thing of beauty, a very useable symbol found everywhere from signs to handwritten notes.

It also has a long history, which is celebrated in this infographic created by Six Revisions. I had no idea it dates back to 63 BC!

Want to help advance science? Then test your vocab!

The first part of the test will present you with a list of words; you need to check the boxes next to words you know and submit them. A second set of words will then appear to narrow down your vocabulary level. The third and optional part will collect statistical information. Apparently the test provides accurate results for “virtually everyone”.

So what’s the science bit? Well:

TestYourVocab.com is part of an independent American-Brazilian research project to measure vocabulary sizes according to age and education, and particularly to compare native learning rates with foreign language classroom learning rates.

If you want more detail about how the research works, try the FAQs and Nitty-Gritty pages.

Have you taken the test? What score did you get?

UC Berkeley is asking incoming freshmen to submit their voices before arrival in a project that has been described as “part linguistic experiment, part social science and part ice-breaker” by the LA Times.

Last year the school caused controversy by asking students to send in saliva samples for DNA testing, with concerns raised over privacy. The new project aims to map and compare the students’ accents to find differences and similarities across the world.

The resulting voice samples will be presented on an interactive world map with others able to play the samples. Students will also be matched with others who have similar pronunciation, using a voice recognition programme. So far around 300 students have participated and it is hoped that 1500 will in time for orientation in September.

This sounds like a great way to informally connect to your school and your peers whilst also thinking about the implications of such a diverse range of accents. Would you submit a recording if you were headed to Berkeley?

Indiana has become the latest state to drop the requirement for children to learn joined-up (cursive) handwriting.

The new Common Core State Standards Initiative does not require cursive, and around forty states have so far signed up to it. Some states, including Massachusetts and California, have re-included cursive as is allowed by the Standards.

Indiana will instead focus on children learning typing skills, which education officials say are more useful for the employment world.

Many schools have said there simply is not enough time in the term to teach children both.

Dr Scott Hamilton, an Indiana clinical psychologist, said the time children spend labouring over script could be better used.

“From an intuitive standpoint, this makes sense, based on the increasingly digital world into which this generation of children is growing up,” he said.

Denna Renbarger, an education official in Lawrence Township, Indiana, said there were many more important things for students to be learning at school

“I think it’s progressive of our state to be ahead on this,” she told the Indianapolis Star. (Source: BBC News)

The decision is contentious, with some parents, psychologists and educators arguing that there is more to handwriting than being able to write quickly.

“The fluidity of cursive allows for gains in spelling and a better tie to what they are reading and comprehending through stories and through literature,” Paul Sullivan, head teacher of a school in California, told CNN.

“I think there’s a firmer connection of wiring between the brain’s processes of learning these skills and the actual practice of writing.”

What do you think? Should children still be learning cursive?

What kind of dictionary takes 90 years to complete? One from the ancient world apparently.

Scholars from The University of Chicago have just completed an Assyrian dictionary that was started in 1921. Lots of staff have worked on the project, with scholars from Vienna, Paris, Copenhagen, Jerusalem, Berlin, Helsinki, Baghdad and London in addition to those from the US and Canada.

The dictionary was compiled from words recorded on clay or stone tablets from ruins in Syria, Turkey, Iran and Iraq.  When the project started the technology used included typewriters and mimeographs. Over 2 million index cards were used. The Chicago Assyrian Dictionary is comprised of 21 volumes, around 10,000 pages and 28,000 words. Some volumes only cover one letter.

So what is the value of a dictionary that showcases a language that died so long ago?

Gil Stein, director of the university’s Oriental Institute (the dictionary’s home), has a ready answer:

“The Assyrian Dictionary gives us the key into the world’s first urban civilization,” he says. “Virtually everything that we take for granted … has its origins in Mesopotamia, whether it’s the origins of cities, of state societies, the invention of the wheel, the way we measure time, and most important the invention of writing.

“If we ever want to understand our roots,” Stein adds, “we have to understand this first great civilization.”

The translated cuneiform texts – originally written with wedged-shaped characters – reveal a culture where people expressed joy, anxiety and disappointment about the same events they do today: a child’s birth, bad harvests, money troubles, boastful leaders.

“A lot of what you see is absolutely recognizable – people expressing fear and anger, expressing love, asking for love,” says Matthew Stolper, a University of Chicago professor who worked on the project on and off over three decades. “There are inscriptions from kings that tell you how great they are, and inscriptions from others who tell you those guys weren’t so great. … There’s also lot of ancient versions of `your check is in the mail.’ And there’s a common phrase in old Babylonian letters that literally means `don’t worry about a thing.’” (Source: AP/Seattle Times)

Quite a story!

The word ‘dude’ often conjures up images of surfers and Californian drop-outs, but it’s becoming increasingly well-used by English speakers all over the world.

According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, its origins are in African American Vernacular English (AAVE), the dialect spoken by African Americans throughout the United States:

dude
1883, “fastidious man,” New York City slang of unknown origin. The vogue word of 1883, originally used in reference to the devotees of the “aesthetic” craze, later applied to city slickers, especially Easterners vacationing in the West (e.g. dude ranch, first recorded 1921).
Application to any male is recorded by 1966, U.S., originally in Black English.

The Dialect Blog looks at this further and concludes:

Here is what’s interesting, though. Dude is currently used in both African American Vernacular English and “white” dialects like General American. But it’s used somewhat differently in these two contexts.

Among AAVE speakers, I have noticed that “dude” is used far more commonly in the third person. For example, an AAVE speaker might say:

“What’s wrong with that dude?”

But the sentence …

“What’s wrong with you, dude?”

… doesn’t sound right in AAVE. In California or other kinds of Englishes, on the other hand, this question would sound perfectly normal. This is my own perception, of course, but I’ve noticed that African Americans (who speak AAVE) rarely refer to the people they are directly speaking to as “dude.”

The comments on the blog post are also interesting – dude seems to have quite a history!

Do you say dude and in what context?