Verbal fluency

The other day someone asked me what ‘verbal fluency’ meant. I wasn’t very convincing. So I did a little searching. Verbal fluency refers to the ability to quickly access your mental vocabulary.. selecting appropriate and discarding less appropriate words ..while speaking or writing. If you've ever struggled searching through synonyms in a thesaurus ..fell short of a witty comeback .. or failed to persuade someone of something you know well ..then you understand the importance of verbal fluency. Boosting or recovering a patients’ verbal fluency is one of the objectives of speech therapy. Verbal fluency eludes me a lot of the time. Oh well oh well..

Sexual development

“The onset of puberty is determined by a mix of genetic and environmental factors coming to bear on the hypothalamus of the brain.”  Margaret M McCarthy, Piece in the puzzle of puberty, Nature, February 2013.

Somatosensory awareness

Mindfulness starts with the body: Meditation has been practiced for over two millennia in Asian Buddhist traditions. It is said to involve the cultivation of experiential awareness of the present moment. This present-moment focus is thought to improve well-being by allowing individuals to become aware of sensations, emotions and thoughts that arise in the mind without judgment or reactivity. Over the last two decades, mindfulness-related treatments have become an increasingly common component of the healthcare system. A common set of mindfulness exercises have been shown to reduce distress in chronic pain and decrease risk of depression relapse. These practices require attending to breath and body sensations. Here, we offer a novel view. Somatic focus helps modulate 7–14 Hz alpha rhythms (brain waves) that play a key role in filtering inputs to primary sensory neocortex and organizing the flow of sensory information in the brain. In support of the framework, we describe our previous finding that meditation enhances attention in the primary somatosensory cortex. The framework allows us to make several predictions. In chronic pain, we predict somatic attention “de-biases” neuro activity, freeing up pain-focused resources. In depression relapse, we predict somatic attention competes with internally focused rumination, as internally focused cognitive processes (including working memory) rely on alpha filtering of sensory input. Somatic focus sensitizes practitioners to better detect and regulate when the mind wanders from its somatic focus. Enhanced regulation of somatic mind-wandering may be an important early stage of mindfulness training that leads to enhanced cognitive regulation and metacognition

From Frontiers in Neuroscience [ link ]

Buddhist parable

“I am going to give you big secret of the fountain of youth that will save you much money on cosmetics and plastic surgery: In stillness we do not age as quickly as those whose minds are constantly battling to hold their personalities together.”  ◊  Wing

Psychologists have reached the same conclusion. A large amount of mental activity is spent to making sure that what we say conforms to our personality. In a study titled Cognitive demand and self-presentation [link] they asked participants about a specific event. Participants often answered with an average case that best represented the image they were trying to maintain. That's a lot of work. Far easier to report an actual experience than compute an average.

Bilingual advantage

“If you walk into a room, where a million things can attract your attention, how does your mind pay attention to what you need to pay attention to without getting distracted?”  [link]

Speaking multiple languages may be an advantage in more ways than one: a new study suggests that bilinguals are speedier task-switchers than monolinguals [link]. Task-switching has real-world applications ..the ability to mentally “switch gears” and refocus on new goals.It is a valuable skill that has numerous practical uses. You use it to shift attention from the wheel to the road while driving, or to switch gears between offense and defense in a team sport. Bilingualism has already been associated with a number of cognitive advantages, and now a 2010 study from Language and Cognition has investigated how bilingualism might enhance crucial task-switching skills in young adults  This study contributes to a growing body of evidence suggesting that bilinguals enjoy enhanced executive control compared to monolinguals. Executive control refers to a combination of cognitive abilities—including task-switching—that help you make decisions, control impulses, and plan thoughtfully. It’s long been thought that constant management and monitoring of two languages improves executive control—a belief that this Carnegie Mellon study supports.