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Ever thought your brain worked the same way when looking at pictures and text? Not so much.  In the brain, one area sees familiar words as pictures andnother sounds out words, according to newswise.com. Skilled readers can quickly recognize words when they read because the word has been placed in a visual dictionary of sorts which functions separately from an area that processes the sounds of written words, say Georgetown University Medical Center (GUMC) neuroscientists. The visual dictionary idea rebuts a common theory that our brain needs to “sound out” words each time we see them.  “Beginning readers have to sound out words as they read, which makes reading a very long and laborious process,” says the study’s lead investigator, Laurie Glezer, PhD, a postdoctoral research fellow. The research was conducted in the Laboratory for Computational Cognitive Neuroscience at GUMC, led by Maximilian Riesenhuber, PhD. I don't know about you but when I read about the ...

Is it in your genes?  Your ability to be compassionate , and sensitive, that's what. A new study has found that, if you jump to help the less fortunate, cry during sad movie scenes, or tweet and post the latest topics and photos that excite or move you, you may be among the 20 percent of our population that is genetically pre-disposed to empathy, according to Stony Brook University psychologists Arthur and Elaine Aron. Newswise.com reports that Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) of brains provide physical evidence that the “highly sensitive” brain responds powerfully to emotional images. People who tend to show heightened awareness to subtle stimuli, process information more thoroughly, and be more reactive to both positive and negative stimuli. In contrast, the majority of people have comparatively low sensory processing sensitivity (SPS) and pay less attention to subtle stimuli, approach situations more quickly and are not as emotionally reactive. In my ...