Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
Seventeen research participants aged 18-26 “were trained to learn six one-syllable sounds (pesh, dree, ner, vece, nuck and fute). …The participants were repeatedly shown the 18 ‘pseudo’ words and a black-and-white picture representing each word’s meaning. Pesh, for example, at one pitch meant ‘glass,’ at another pitch meant ‘pencil’ and at a third meant ‘table.’ Dree, depending upon pitch, meant ‘arm,’ ‘cow’ or ‘telephone.’
That could be a big difference if you’re trying to keep up in a fast-paced class. The authors aren’t falling into the old biology-is-destiny trap, either. An undersize Heschl’s Gyrus may not keep you from being an ace translator. Says Wong, “We are already testing different learning strategies for participants whom we predict will be less successful to see if altering the training paradigm results in more successful learning.”
