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How our body does our thinking

March 25, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

London, Mar 25 (ANI): Our bodies and their relationship with the environment govern even our most abstract thoughts, which include thinking up random numbers or deciding whether to recount positive or negative incidents, a new research suggests.
“Advocates of traditional accounts of cognition would be surprised,” says Tobias Loetscher at the University of Melbourne in Parkville, Australia. “They generally consider human reasoning to involve abstract cognitive processes devoid of any connection to body or space.”

Up till now, it had been claimed that human bodies contribute only to their most basic interactions with the environment, that is sensory and motor processes, reports New Scientist.

However, in the study, Loetscher and his colleagues have linked humans” ability to think of random numbers to bodily movements. (ANI)

Filed Under: International News Tagged With: Abstract Thoughts, advocates, Australia, Bodily Movements, cognitive processes, colleagues, environment, Human Bodies, Human Reasoning, Loetscher, London, Motor Processes, Negative Incidents, New Scientist, Parkville, Random Numbers, relationship, tobias, Traditional Accounts, university of melbourne

Eyes can tell what we have in our minds

March 24, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

Washington, March 24 (ANI): Eyes are not just windows to the soul – they can also tell what we are thinking, a new research has shown.

Researchers at the University of Melbourne have been able to predict the numbers people are thinking of by analysing their eye movements.

In the study, participants were asked to state a series of random numbers. By measuring their vertical and horizontal eye position, researchers were able to predict with reliable confidence the next chosen number – before it was spoken.

Specifically, a leftward and downward change in eye position announced that the next number would be smaller than the last.

Correspondingly, if the eyes changed position to the right and upward, it forecast that the next number would be larger. The degree of eye movement reflected the size of the numerical shift.

First author, Dr Tobias Loetscher of the University of Melbourne””s School of Behavioural Sciences and previously of the Department of Neurology, University Hospital Zurich, Switzerland says the research demonstrates how the eyes and their position give insight into the nature of the systematic choices made by the brain””s random number generator.

“When we think of numbers we automatically code them in space, with smaller number falling to the left and larger numbers to the right. That is, we think of them along a left-to-right oriented mental number line – often without even noticing this number-space association ourselves,” Loetscher said.

“This study shows that shifts along the mental number line are accompanied by systematic eye movements. We suggest that when we navigate through mental representations – as for example numbers – we re-use brain processes that primarily evolved for interacting and navigating in the outside world,” Loetscher added.

The study was published online in the prestigious journal Current Biology. (ANI)

Filed Under: International News Tagged With: Behavioural Sciences, brain processes, current biology, Department Of Neurology, eye movement, eye movements, Eye Position, Loetscher, Mental Representations, Number Space, Prestigious Journal, Random Number Generator, Random Numbers, Space Association, Study participants, tobias, university hospital zurich, university of melbourne, Windows To The Soul, Zurich Switzerland

Song birds have to deal with cover artists too

September 10, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, Sep 9 (ANI): Just like great singers among humans, birds too have to deal with cover artists who copy songs.

A new research has revealed that some bird species have evolved to sing the same tune as their rivals, in order to compete effectively.

Led by Dr. Joseph Tobias and Dr Nathalie Seddon from the Edward Grey Institute, University of Oxford, the research team analysed the calls and songs of two antbird species that were living side-by-side in the Amazon rainforest- the Peruvian warbling-antbird and the yellow-breasted warbling-antbird.

The study was aimed at investigating their similar songs, and, in particular, at testing the theory that the birds’ songs could become increasingly similar to enable effective communication between competing species.

The above notion has attracted controversy as many scientists have argued that convergence in territorial or mating signals results in needless confrontation or crossbreeding and the creation of hybrids.

“Biologists have long been fascinated by convergence in ecological traits as it offers tangible evidence of evolution and the forces of selection by which it operates, but until now there is no clear evidence that social competition between animal species can produce convergent signals. We examined this idea by analysing the structure and function of songs in two birds which we knew to be strong social competitors,” said Tobias.

The researchers studied the species in Peru and Bolivia at one site where they lived together, and two sites where they lived in isolation.

Firstly, they recorded three sets of signals-songs, calls, and plumage colour of both species (including a total of 504 songs from 150 individuals).

Later, they played them back to individuals of each species to test the significance of songs of both types.

The results showed that territorial songs of both species were extremely similar particularly where they lived together, such that territorial birds treated songs of both species as equally threatening.

In the meantime, they discovered that non-territorial signals like calls and plumage were highly divergent.

“In effect, the territorial songs of these birds are more or less interchangeable in design and function. Given that they last shared a common ancestor more than 3 million years ago, it is almost equivalent to humans and chimpanzees – which diverged around 5 million years ago – using the same language to settle disputes over resources” said Tobias.

“Our results provide the first compelling evidence that social interaction can cause convergent evolution in species competing for space and resources.

They also suggest that while competition drives convergence in territorial songs, this is offset by divergence in non-competitive signals such as plumage colour to promote species recognition and reduce the chance of interbreeding,” he added.

The study has been published in Evolution.(ANI)

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Tobey Maguire names son Otis Tobias

July 4, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, July 04(ANI): Actor Tobey Maguire and his wife Jennifer Meyer have named their newborn son Otis Tobias.

The Spider-Man star’s representatives have confirmed the child’s birth, People magazine reports.

No explanation was provided for naming the kid Otis, but the baby’s middle name of Tobais is the formal version of the actor’s first name.

Otis, who was born on May 8 this year, is the couple’s second child, the first being their 2-year-old daughter Ruby.

Maguire married Meyer in 2007. (ANI)

Filed Under: Entertainment News Tagged With: Daughter Ruby, Jennifer Meyer, man star, middle name, names, newborn son, Otis, people magazine, spider man, tobais, Tobey Maguire, tobias, Wife Jennifer

Female birds ‘jam’ their partners’ flirtatious tunes

March 13, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, Mar 13 (ANI): Female antbirds sing over the songs of their male partners in a bid to prevent their flirtatious messages from reaching single female birds, a new study has found.

The study also found that males respond to that interruption by singing a different tune.

According to researchers, the findings offer the first evidence that such ‘signal jamming’ and ‘jamming avoidance’ occur between mates.

“In human terms, signal jamming is most commonly associated with attempts to scramble information in radio, radar, or cell phone signals,” said Joseph Tobias of the University of Oxford.

“The females in our study try to do a similar thing with the songs of their partner, but the overall situation is more analogous to a wife continually interrupting her husband to stop him from flirting with a single woman,” he added.

In a series of playback experiments, the researchers found that resident pairs of antbirds sing coordinated duets when responding to rival pairs. But under other circumstances, cooperation breaks down, leading to more complex songs.

Specifically, they report that females respond to unpaired sexual rivals by jamming the signals of their own mates, who in turn adjust their signals to avoid the interference.

Tobias said the females’ attempts to jam their partners’ songs are presumably intended to make the males less attractive, or to make it clear that they are ‘taken.’

He added that the results in antbirds may have broad implications for understanding how communal signals have developed over evolutionary time in many animals, and perhaps even in humans.

First, Tobias said, the findings reveal that group signals such as duets and choruses represent a subtle blend of cooperation and conflict. The balance between those two forces depends on the context.

Their study also suggests that if there is some conflict in the system, then multiple singers can combine to produce rhythmic, precisely coordinated, and increasingly complex songs simply by avoiding overlap.

“Most evidence points to vocalizations in early humans having a function in both mate attraction and resource defense, so it seems plausible that ‘signal jamming’ and especially ‘jamming avoidance’ played a role in our evolutionary history. If so, our results may help to explain the first steps towards complex, coordinated group signals in humans, which themselves are the likely forerunners to modern music,” Tobias said.

The study has been published online on March 12th in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication. (ANI)

Filed Under: Science News Tagged With: antbirds, avoidance, choruses, different tune, Duets, evolutionary time, female birds, first evidence, interruption, male partners, mates, phone signals, playback experiments, radio radar, rivals, single woman, study also found that, subtle blend, tobias, university of oxford

How our body does our thinking

Eyes can tell what we have in our minds

Tobey Maguire names son Otis Tobias

Female birds ‘jam’ their partners’ flirtatious tunes

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