Catalog Search Results
Language
English
Description
During the Vietnam War, the US bombed Laos more heavily than any other country had been bombed before. Spanning over three presidential terms, it was the largest covert CIA operation in US history. Today, the Laos people live among, and risk their lives to clear, over 80 million unexploded bombs on their doorsteps. With great beauty and empathy, this doc reveals the unbelievable stories of the men and women at the forefront of this monumental task....
Publisher
The Great Courses
Language
English
Description
Explore many of the evolutionary features that help babies prepare for successful communication, including the social cues that help them identify specific word meanings in an almost limitless sea of options. Consider the power of pupillary contagion as it activates the brain networks involved in perspective taking and the crucial social skill known as theory of mind.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Language
English
Description
Investigate how the plasticity of the brain allows us to "cobble together" a neural network for reading and writing as we mature, using dyslexia and synesthesia to illustrate this networking property. This network develops at different times for different people, but no one is born with it; our "reading brain" is truly a technological transformation.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Language
English
Description
See why language truly is an example of emergentism, and why language production cannot fully be understood without considering how human brains connect to each other. Then, probe the fascinating workings of the mirror neuron system, neural synchrony, and the significance of the N400 response, as you discover why face-to-face interactions are so crucial for optimal communication.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Language
English
Description
Did the human brain evolve a specialized "mental organ" designed for language? Or was language a product of cultural evolution? Examine our relationship to the human microbiome as an analogy. We aren't born with the bacteria in our microbiome, but our biology is extraordinarily receptive to them. And once combined, the relationship transforms us and our abilities, very similar to language.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Language
English
Description
Learn about the fascinating aspects of language we take for granted every day: our ability to use symbols, understand rules, generate novel utterances, speak about the past and future, and even purposefully lie. All of these universals, and more, have allowed language to become our greatest tool.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Language
English
Description
What happens in the brain when we learn a language in addition to our native tongue? That depends on when that additional language is learned and its modality relative to the native language (i.e., Are both languages speech, or is one sign?). Discover the fascinating experiments that have revealed the brain's "bilingual language control" function and the many ways in which it can go awry.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Language
English
Description
By exploring a version of language that operates in a different modality than speech, you'll develop a wider and deeper appreciation of what language actually is. You'll unveil many myths about sign language, as you learn about its fascinating development and linguistic components. Our relatively recent understanding of neural mechanisms reveals that language is language, regardless of modality.
Publisher
Ideas Roadshow
Language
English
Description
Four experts (David Bellos, Michael Berry, Pankaj Mishra, Carol Padden) describe intriguing insights regarding the overlap of language and culture, from the global proliferation of sign languages, to the idea of language as an expression of identity.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Language
English
Description
Explore the latest scientific research and theories related to the brain's ability to produce speech: one of the most complex of all human activities requiring the coordination of an estimated 100 muscles in the lungs, throat, jaw, tongue, and face. And learn why we need to hear our own speech in order to successfully produce it, even as adults.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Language
English
Description
Witness how the arbitrary and abstract elements of language interact with the iconic and concrete expressions of the body. Remembering that language originally evolved within a face-to-face context, the revelation of recent studies is not surprising: The body influences all parts of language and we use the whole body to take meaning from what we hear.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Language
English
Description
Explore the brain structures of babies that give them their extraordinary auditory abilities, and why it's so difficult for adults to learn new languages. Discover how exposure to our native language actually changes our brain, removing our ability to access objective auditory information in the environment, and why we each perceive a uniquely distorted world.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Language
English
Description
In 24 fascinating episodes, Dr. Spencer Kelly, Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at Colgate University, takes you on a fascinating journey to explore questions about the origin of the human mind, what makes our communication so much different than other animals, whether or not language itself influences thought, and how babies learn their native language without direct teaching.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Language
English
Description
Learn how language has allowed humans to develop math, build a capacity for logic, categorize the world around us, develop the concept of metaphor, and construct narratives. While we take each of these functions for granted every day because they feel so natural, none would have been possible without language.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Language
English
Description
Journey through a series of fascinating experiments developed to determine whether or not language can influence thought independent of culture. Perhaps not unexpectedly (and working with individuals from preverbal infants to adults), these experiments reveal that language and culture both influence thought, often working in tandem.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Language
English
Description
Only recently have scientists had the tools to examine the neural processing of language. The results reveal a brain that has evolved to process language as a survival mechanism. Learn about the brain's dual-stream pathways and their benefits, the latest research revealing that words activate practically every square inch of the brain's surface, and details still being debated today.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Language
English
Description
Learn about the three basic principles of the brain as the foundation of all human learning: neural specialization, the connectome, and the brain's plasticity. Discover how the many developments in neuroimaging over the past 30 years (including ERP, MEG, and fMRI scans) have helped us better understand the relationships between brain mechanisms and behavior, both typical and atypical.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Language
English
Description
What are the potential by-products of speaking multiple languages? Learn what relatively recent research has shown about the ways in which having multiple languages opens up different emotional, cognitive, and social worlds, and how the mind travels back and forth between them. And consider the controversial claim that becoming a bilinguist can actually improve your cognitive reserve.
In Interlibrary Loan
Didn't find what you need? Items not owned by Penticton Public Library can be requested from other Interlibrary Loan libraries to be delivered to your local library for pickup. Items must be over 1 year old.
Didn't find it?
Can't find what you are looking for? Try our Materials Request Service for new books published this year. Submit Request