Messages hidden behind the lips
What happens in our mind when we hear ambiguous words? Research in psycholinguistics shed light on the rhetorical devices used in poetry and alchemy.
Do you think I believe you hope…? The limits of recursion
In Slavic villages, when a young girl wanted to know what her future husband would look like, she would go to a dark, dark barn in the middle of the night, put two mirrors facing each other and light two candles. Next, she would stare at the endless “tunnel” formed by the reflections until she could see a face. This divination method is based on recursion.
Bats learn sounds from each other: an interview with Dr. Ella Lattenkamp
Dr. Ella Lattenkamp was a PhD student at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics and the Ludwig-Maximilians University Munich. She defended her thesis entitled ‘Vocal Learning in the Pale Spear-Nosed Bat, Phyllostomus discolor’ on April 23 2020.
Reverse speaking? C’est ouf!
Slang is an important way for social groups to stress their cultural identity. Also, some slangs can be used to convey secret information within a community, without outsiders understanding what they are talking about. How does this work? Here, we look at an example from French and try to understand how slang words are learned and used.
Zooming out during your video calls?
Imagine your laptop screen keeps freezing, the video of your friend or colleague suddenly lags and their speech sounds like a robot. You want to talk, but you are not sure about when to start your turn in conversation. There is an awkward silence. The screen turns black.