Perception News

May 20, 2025

Top Headlines

Language Isn't Just for Communication -- It Also Shapes How Sensory Experiences Are Stored in the Brain

May 20, 2025 — Our ability to store information about familiar objects depends on the connection between visual and language processing regions in the brain, according to a new ...

Research Reveals Why Next-Generation Engine Noise Grinds Our Gears

May 15, 2025 — A breakthrough study has revealed why emerging electric aircraft engine technology sounds so annoying -- and how to fix ...

New Auditory Brainstem Implant Shows Early Promise

May 16, 2025 — Investigators are developing a new type of auditory brainstem implant that is designed to be soft, and flexible and address limitations of models currently in use. These implants may one day benefit people who can't receive a cochlear implant, such ...

Study Reveals a Deep Brain Region That Links the Senses

May 15, 2025 — Humans perceive and navigate the world around us with the help of our five senses: sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell. And while scientists have long known that these different senses activate different parts of the brain, a new study indicates ...

Latest Headlines

updated 10:46pm EDT

How the Brain Allows Us to Infer Emotions

May 14, 2025 — Researchers have discovered how inferred emotions are learned. The study shows that the frontal part of the brain coordinates with the amygdala -- a brain region important for simple forms of ...

Vision Loss, Damage Could Be Tied to Eye Pressure, Study Finds

May 14, 2025 — One of the world's leading causes of irreversible vision loss could begin with elevated eye pressure, according to a recent ...

Brain Scans Reveal What Happens in the Mind When Insight Strikes

May 14, 2025 — That 'aha' moment when you come back to a puzzle and immediately figure it out? Something fascinating is going on in your brain. A new study using functional magnetic resonance imaging shows that ...

Energy and Memory: A New Neural Network Paradigm

May 14, 2025 — Listen to the first notes of an old, beloved song. Can you name that tune? If you can, congratulations -- it's a triumph of your associative memory, in which one piece of information (the first few ...

The Key to Spotting Dyslexia Early Could Be AI-Powered Handwriting Analysis

May 14, 2025 — A new study outlines how artificial intelligence-powered handwriting analysis may serve as an early detection tool for dyslexia and dysgraphia among young ...

Scientists Discover New Way the Brain Learns

May 14, 2025 — Neuroscientists have discovered that the brain uses a dual system for learning through trial and error. This is the first time a second learning system has been identified, which could help explain ...

Mapping a New Brain Network for Naming

May 13, 2025 — Researchers identified two brain networks involved in word retrieval -- the cognitive process of accessing words we need to speak. A semantic network processes meaning in middle/inferior frontal ...

The How and Why of the Brain's Division Across Hemispheres

May 12, 2025 — Why does the brain split visual spatial perception between its hemispheres? A new review by neuroscientists examines the advantages and trade-offs, and how the brain ultimately makes vision feel ...

Is AI Truly Creative? Turns out Creativity Is in the Eye of the Beholder

May 8, 2025 — What makes people think an AI system is creative? New research shows that it depends on how much they see of the creative act. The findings have implications for how we research and design creative ...

Music Therapy Helps Brain-Injured Children

May 8, 2025 — Music could provide a breakthrough in assessing consciousness levels in children who have suffered significant brain injuries, according to new ...

Study Suggests We Don't Just Hear Music, but 'Become It'

May 6, 2025 — Psychologists suggest our brains and bodies don't just understand music, they physically resonate with it. These discoveries, based on findings in neuroscience, music, and psychology, support ...

Our Ability to Recognize Objects Depends on Prior Experience

May 2, 2025 — New findings suggest neurons have much more functional dexterity than scientists previously ...

Artificial Sense of Touch, Improved

May 1, 2025 — While exploring a digitally represented object through artificially created sense of touch, brain-computer interface users described the warm fur of a purring cat, the smooth rigid surface of a door ...

A Virtual Reality Game Integrating Smell to Fight Cognitive Decline

Apr. 30, 2025 — Aiming to address age-related cognitive decline, a growing global health challenge, a team of researchers has developed a VR-based smell-training system to help combat it. This innovative VR game ...

Landmark Experiment Sheds New Light on the Origins of Consciousness

Apr. 30, 2025 — An experiment seven years in the making has uncovered new insights into the nature of consciousness and challenges two prominent, competing scientific theories: Integrated Information Theory (IIT) ...

New 'Hidden in Plain Sight' Facial and Eye Biomarkers for Tinnitus Severity Could Unlock Path to Testing Treatments

Apr. 30, 2025 — Researchers have identified biomarkers for tinnitus severity in subtle facial movements and pupil dilation that can be captured on video recordings. Until now, there has been no objective way to ...

Trouble Hearing in Noisy Places and Crowded Spaces? Researchers Say New Algorithm Could Help Hearing Aid Users

Apr. 28, 2025 — BU researchers develop a brain-inspired algorithm that can help people with hearing loss pick out conversations in noisy, crowded ...

Brain Decoder Controls Spinal Cord Stimulation

Apr. 28, 2025 — A lab develops brain wave decoder that may help in spinal cord injury ...

Awkward. Humans Are Still Better Than AI at Reading the Room

Apr. 24, 2025 — Humans are better than current AI models at interpreting social interactions and understanding social dynamics in moving scenes. Researchers believe this is because AI neural networks were inspired ...

What Happens in the Brain When Your Mind Blanks

Apr. 24, 2025 — Mind blanking is a common experience with a wide variety of definitions ranging from feeling 'drowsy' to 'a complete absence of conscious awareness.' Neuroscientists and ...

Scientists Trick the Eye Into Seeing New Color 'Olo'

Apr. 23, 2025 — Scientists have created a new platform called 'Oz' that uses laser light to control up to 1,000 photoreceptors in the eye at once. Using Oz, the researchers showed people images, videos and ...

By 15 Months, Infants Begin to Learn New Words for Objects, Even Those They've Never Seen

Apr. 23, 2025 — A new study by developmental scientists offers the first evidence that infants as young as 15 months can identify an object they have learned about from listening to language -- even if the object ...

Brain-Inspired AI Breakthrough: Making Computers See More Like Humans

Apr. 22, 2025 — Researchers have developed a new artificial intelligence (AI) technique that brings machine vision closer to how the human brain processes images. Called Lp-Convolution, this method improves the ...

Retinal Clues to Mental Health

Apr. 22, 2025 — A new study has shown that evidence of genetic susceptibility to schizophrenia can be found in the retina. This finding could help improve the early detection of the ...

Listeners Use Gestures to Predict Upcoming Words

Apr. 22, 2025 — In face-to-face conversations, speakers use hand movements to signal meaning. But do listeners actually use these gestures to predict what someone might say next? In a study using virtual avatars, ...

Novel Treatment Approach for Language Disorder Shows Promise

Apr. 21, 2025 — Neuroscientists have developed a new treatment approach for a language disorder that combines traditional speech therapy with noninvasive electrical stimulation of the brain. Brain stimulation helped ...

How Thoughts Influence What the Eyes See

Apr. 18, 2025 — A new study by biomedical engineers and neuroscientists shows that the brain's visual regions play an active role in making sense of ...

Soft Brainstem Implant Delivers High-Resolution Hearing

Apr. 18, 2025 — A team has developed a soft, thin-film ABI. The device uses micrometer-scale platinum electrodes embedded in silicone, forming a pliable array just a fraction of a millimeter thick. This novel ...

Finding Friendship at First Whiff: Scent Plays Role in Platonic Potential

Apr. 17, 2025 — Two women meeting for the first time can judge within minutes whether they have the potential to be friends -- guided as much by smell as any other sense, research on friendship formation ...

Is My Green Your Green?

Apr. 16, 2025 — 'Do we see colors the same way?' is a fundamentally human question and one of great importance in research into the human mind. While impossible to answer at present, researchers take steps ...