Do you ever wonder why you are able to block out conversations in a language in which you are not proficient, but you cannot tune out conversations conducted in your own language, even when you are trying to work? An interesting article in the November 17 issue of The Daily Yomiuri explains that, "Our neural mechanisms are beautifully tuned to catch the sounds of our native languages, but that very tuning has the effect of tuning out new languages." Patterns of neural connections apparently develop to produce sounds and sound sequences, and to hear them. The standard sounds for each language establish themselves as "perceptual magnets," or "attractors," so that we automatically interpret any language sound as one of the sounds we know. These attractors for known sounds preempt new sounds, making it difficult to add new language sound attractors.
Peter Ocko, Executive Producer of the new neurosurgery TV drama 3 Lbs, told Newsday today that we can expect to see episodes involving deep brain stimulation for depression, phantom limb pain, and other topics "on the leading edge of neuroscience."
We also can expect to understand how the brain generates consciousness by the year 2056, according to today's Mirror. Only 50 more years ...
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