Scientific News
Fake news: can we create our own misinformation?

Jason C. Coronel (a professor of communications at Ohio State University), Shannon Poulsen, and Matthew Sweitzer (all doctoral students at Ohio State) carried out a two-part study in order to shed light on the role of digital facts in misinformation and how it is spread.
In the ...
Can dogs encourage kids to read?

Camille Xinmei Rousseau (a doctoral student at British Columbia Okanagan, Canada) and Christine Yvette Tardif-Williams (Professor at Brock University Saint Catharines, Canada) investigated whether dogs could ...
Can board games help preserve cognitive function?

Among the various types of interventions that could potentially promote “successful cognitive aging,” scientists have already shown that enjoyable activities, like cards, crosswords, and sudoku can have ...
Neuroplasticity: does playing the drums change the brain?

As a preamble to the study, the authors indicate that for the past 5,000 years, over all continents, there has been a constant ratio of 90% right-handed to 10% left-handed people. Each hand is controlled by the contralateral motor cortex. The ...
A driver’s license for rats?

While the behavioral tasks generally used to assess cognitive processes provide interesting information, they tend to be overly simple and do not reflect the animal’s real cognitive potential. This is why the scientists in the present study wanted to assess behaviors that allow for the observation of various responses. According ...
Is a well-wrapped present better appreciated?

According to Jessica M. Rixom, a co-author of this study and professor of marketing at the University of Nevada, Reno: “When we receive a gift from a friend, we use the wrapping as a cue about the gift inside and form expectations […] If it's wrapped neatly, we set high expectations, ...
Can babies understand numbers before they learn to count?

Lisa Feigenson, a specialist in child number development, and Jenny Wang, both from Johns Hopkins University, observed 14 to 18-month old babies in a simple experiment. They showed the babies toys (small cars or dog figurines), which they ...
How quickly can our brain recognize a familiar song?

As a preamble to their research, the scientists from the Ear Institute (University College London) point out that research has shown that the concept of musical familiarity is based largely on traces of long-term memory ...
Can garlic save your memory?

Neuroscience in conjunction with microbiology has shown that there is indeed permanent communication between our gut and our brain. There are 200 million neurons in our large intestine connected to our brain through the vagus ...
Is optimism one of the keys to longevity?

Work on exceptional longevity has so far often focused on biomedical factors while the positive influence of psychosocial factors on healthy aging remains much less clear. This is what motivated Lewina O Lee and her colleagues to study the possible effects of optimism on longevity. They hypothesized that (very) optimistic people would live longer. To test this, they relied on data from two ...
Do brief but intense physical efforts improve brain function?

Various scientific publications have reported the benefits of physical exercise on neuronal activity, including improved learning and memory, through short and long-term changes in synaptic plasticity. Indeed, the dentate gyrus is particularly important as an entry step for coding contextual and spatial information from several brain areas. ...
Do monkeys show greater cognitive flexibility than humans?

In a predictable environment, we apply strategies (developed through past experiences) that save us from intense cognitive exertion and help us solve everyday problems. But we live in a changing environment, and alternative solutions are sometimes ...
Who wants to play hide and seek with rats?

To accomplish their goal of studying the behavior of these rodents while at play, the research team transformed their laboratory into a playground. In the first case, a member of the team placed a rat in a closed box and hid. The scientist then opened the box using a remote control… and ...
Are laugh tracks really effective?

As the study’s authors point out, recorded laughter (live or pre-recorded) was introduced to remind listeners and viewers that they were watching humorous programming and to make them feel like they were part of the audience. Are you ...
Is tea good for the brain?

As the authors point out in the preamble of their article (published in the journal Aging), previous studies have already highlighted the fact that tea consumption could be beneficial for health, including improving mood, preventing cardiovascular disease, and reducing the risks of cognitive decline. The virtues of tea stem primarily from its ...
Will students soon be graded using a neural test?

Researchers at Dartmouth College and Harvard University started from a simple assumption: when an individual acquires new knowledge, it has to be represented somewhere in the brain. If this is the case, these representations should be illustrated through new patterns of brain activity. The ...
Can animals reduce stress in students?

During past decade, American students have reported increasing levels of stress. Implemented in almost 1,000 university campuses to date, the “Pet your stress away” campaign offers students the chance to pet dogs and cats for 5 to 45 minutes in small groups. While the program’s soothing effects have already been noted in previous research, ...
How much time should we spend in nature to improve well-being?

Many studies report improvement in health and well-being when we spend time in natural environments (forests, parks, beaches, etc.). Although evidence varies (in quantity and quality) depending on the research, living in “greener” urban areas is regularly associated with a lower ...
Are emotions contagious in crows, too?

In cognitive science, a person’s ability to attribute mental states (emotions, intentions, desire…) to others or to themselves is known as “theory of mind.” This human ability makes our social relationships more effective. For example, we can quickly detect sadness in another individual simply through their facial expressions. Moreover, one person’s emotions can be quickly ...
Does sleeping make us more creative?

Few studies have attempted to unravel the mystery of sleep as a “creative muse,” though some have shown the role of REM sleep in creativity. This sleep phase could ...