Perception and Processing in the Brain
Two studies conducted by researchers in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences are shining new light on how our brains process information.
In one study, published in the journal Nature, associate professor Michael Weliky found that roughly 80 percent of our brains may be cranking away on tasks completely unknown to us.
"The big question here is what is the brain doing when it's idling, because it's obviously doing something important," Weliky says.
In another study published in the journal Nature Neuroscience, associate professor Daphne Bavelier found that the standard method for assessing a person's mental aptitude—remembering ordered lists of words—may not be accurate, especially for deaf people who communicate with sign language.
For decades, scientists have believed that hearing people can only remember an ordered list of about seven items at a time and signers only five. But the results of Bavelier's research show that regular ordered-item tests were not accurately evaluating deaf individuals, and recalling words in the context of a sentence is likely a much better evaluator of cognitive ability than the old ordered-item tests.
