19 JUN 2013 by ideonexus

 Lojban for Experimental Linquistics

Lojban is a predicate language, with no distinct nouns, verbs, or adjectives. What are the linguistic (communicative) properties of such a system? The answer has been partially explored through symbolic logic. But do people, when thinking linguistically, mimic in any way the processes of formal logic? What effects would a formal-logic– based language have on those linguistic thinking processes? Is the resulting language susceptible to the same analysis as natural language, in terms of the v...
Folksonomies: language artificial
Folksonomies: language artificial
  1  notes

Natural languages lack the controls necessary for experimentation, but an artificial language works for testing Sapir–Whorf hypothesis.

26 JUN 2012 by ideonexus

 Survey of Studies on the Benefits of Meditation

...there has been a growing body of research over the last years examining various cognitive abilities related to mindfulness, most of which focusing on various measures of attention and memory... Although some studies did not find differences between meditators and non-meditators in rigidity related tasks (e.g [47], [48]), others have found that meditators exhibit decreased Stroop interference [49], [50](in a Zen meditation sample). The Stroop task requires participants to name the ink color...
Folksonomies: meditation
Folksonomies: meditation
  1  notes

Decreased Stroop interference, superior visual perspective switching, superior verbal fluency, improved category production tasking, and reduced rumination.

28 JUL 2011 by ideonexus

 Benefits of Open-Ended Playtime

Studies show that, compared with controls, kids allowed a specific type of open-ended play time were: • More creative. On average they came up with three times as many nonstandard creative uses for specific objects (a standard lab measure) as did controls. • Better at language. The children’s use of language was more facile. They displayed a richer store of vocabulary and a more varied use of words. • Better at problem solving. This is fluid intelligence, one of the basic...
  1  notes

Lots of boosts to a child's creativity and cognition when they are allowed free playtime.