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Malay Mail
29-06-2025
- Science
- Malay Mail
No goo-goo gaga: Humans stand alone in using ‘baby talk' — great apes don't do it, study finds
ZURICH, June 29 — Talking to babies in a high-pitched voice and using exaggerated pronunciation seems natural to most parents. This way of speaking, found in all human cultures, is thought to facilitate language learning in young children. But is this universal human practice shared by our closest cousins? A study published in the journal Science Advances reveals that great apes communicate very little with their young, suggesting that our propensity for 'baby talk' is a distinctive feature of the human species. Previous research has shown that this 'baby talk' promotes vocabulary and language skills, but its evolutionary origins remained a mystery. To find out more, a team of biologists and linguists from the University of Zurich and the University of Neuchâtel teamed up with colleagues from France, Germany, and the US. Together, they studied five species of great apes (humans, bonobos, chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans) to observe how they communicate with their young in their natural environment. They found that humans stand out significantly for their use of 'baby talk,' unlike their primate cousins. 'We were surprised by how little of this type of communication we actually observed in our closest living relatives,' explains Franziska Wegdell, UZH postdoc and one of the three first authors of the study, quoted in a news release. This raises the question: how do the young of these great ape species learn to communicate? Researchers believe that the answer lies in indirect listening. In humans, infants acquire new words simply by listening to conversations around them. The team therefore compared this 'infant-surrounding communication' in the five species studied and found that all infants are exposed to it in a similar way, except for orangutans. It may therefore be that, like humans, great apes acquire certain aspects of their communication system socially, but by relying on communication in the surrounding environment rather than direct exchanges. This study nevertheless has limitations. The researchers focused solely on vocal communication, whereas great apes also communicate with their young through gestures. 'We know that non-human great apes direct gestures at their infants, and that some of these gestures even exhibit features also found in human infant-directed communication,' says study co-first author, Caroline Fryns, of the University of Neuchâtel. Understanding the evolution of language requires studying our closest living relatives, because language does not remain static over time. This study reveals that 'baby talk' has developed particularly in humans, even though other species — monkeys, bats, cats, and dolphins — also communicate directly with their young. This unique feature could partly explain why humans excel in the art of speech. — ETX Studio
New York Times
25-06-2025
- Science
- New York Times
Did Baby Talk Give Rise to Language?
If you've ever cooed at a baby, you have participated in a very special experience. Indeed, it's an all but unique one: Whereas humans constantly chatter to their infants, other apes hardly ever do so, a new study reveals. 'It's a new feature that has evolved and massively expanded in our species,' said Johanna Schick, a linguist at the University of Zurich and an author of the study. And that expansion, Dr. Schick and her colleagues argue, may have been crucial to the evolution of language. Other mammals can bark, meow, roar and hoot. But no other species can use a set of sounds to produce words, nor build sentences with those words to convey an infinite variety of meaning. To trace the origin of our gift of language, researchers often study apes, our closest living relatives. These studies hint that some of the ingredients of language had already evolved in the ancestors we share with living apes, which lived millions of years ago. Chimpanzees can make dozens of distinct calls, for example, which they can join into pairs to communicate new things. Building meaning from smaller units is what lets us create sentences from words. Humans and apes are similar in another way: Their babies need time to learn how to make sounds like adults. Scientists have done much more research into how human infants develop language than into how wild baby apes learn to make calls. One striking feature of humans is the way that adults speak to young children. Baby talk — known to scientists as infant-directed speech — often features repeated words, an exaggerated stress on syllables and a high, singsong tone. This distinctive pattern is very effective at grabbing the attention of young children — even when they're too young to understand the meaning of the words that adults are saying. It's possible that children pay attention to infant-directed speech because it helps them learn some of the basic features of language. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Forbes
25-06-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Three Ways Managers Can Make Teams More Productive
Signaling when you're being productive or available for interruptions like a stoplight can help ... More teams. (Photo by Adrian Sherratt/Construction Photography/Avalon/Getty Images) Work today is full of interruptions. The constant influx of emails, notifications, and questions from co-workers can slow individual progress and create a sense of frustration. After all, most people want to feel productive and work toward crossing off important goals from their to-do list. But productivity is more than a one-person show: it's a team effort. Recognizing this can help managers to make their teams more productive. 1. Signal Team Member Availability One solution is to let team members know when they should avoid interrupting people, so that focus time is protected. To accomplish this, a team of researchers at the University of Zurich developed the 'FlowLight,' a tool that detects when a worker is focused and signals availability for interactions to others. First, the tool measures whether workers are in a state of 'flow,' detecting this through computer activity like keyboard and mouse usage. Then, the tool signals via a lightbulb mounted nearby whether now is a good time for interruptions. Like a traffic light, red signals that a person should not be interrupted as they're in the midst of deep work, while green means go ahead. Testing out the FlowLight in a field study of 449 workers across 12 different countries, the researchers found that FlowLight reduced interruptions at work by 46%, allowing workers to focus their energy on individual goals at opportune moments. Given that recovery from a single interruption takes on average 23 minutes and 15 seconds, this amounts to a lot of time saved each workday. Likewise, making it clear in schedules when people are available for interacting with others versus in focus time can help. The same researchers also developed a tool that encourages team members to designate time in these categories in their workday, and then displays this information to co-workers in a digital schedule. Testing this tool with 48 participants over 6 weeks, the tool helped workers to align their schedules so that teams could plan around rhythms of focus time and interaction time. This led workers to experience fewer interruptions during focused work, with 88% agreeing at the end of the study that they could focus well on their work when needed. Coordinating schedules made work less stressful and improved teamwork because workers no longer feared being interrupted at critical moments and were still able to answer co-workers in a timely manner. Taken together, both of these research projects show that signaling to your team members when you're being individually productive and when you're available for helping others can be one way to get the team on board so that by working together, you minimize the cost of interruptions. 2. Change Mindsets About Being Productive Of course, it's not possible to avoid all interruptions, even when team members have the best of intentions. What can be done to help people cope with frustration when interruptions do interfere with work? Research led by Professor Thomas Fritz and co-authored with me, Alexander Lill, and Dr. André Meyer from the University of Zurich and Professor Gail Murphy from the University of British Columbia suggests reflecting on one question can make an impact: 'How can your team help you to be more productive?' Answering this question can boost employees' feelings of productivity at work. After all, the team members we work with are far more than a cause of interruptions that stall our productivity at work. Team members also support us in being productive and progressing toward our own goals, whether by giving feedback on a new idea, talking through a roadblock we've hit, or providing a mood boost by engaging in small talk near the coffee machine. But as we go about our work each day, we might underrecognize the role that our team members play in supporting our own productivity. Becoming more aware of this could help people to reconsider their mindsets about how teamwork impacts productivity – and even boost productivity. This idea draws on research on mindsets, which suggests that calling attention to a sometimes overlooked truth - in this case, that team members can support us in being productive - can be constructive, changing how people respond to frustrations and challenges. To test this idea, we conducted an experiment at a large multinational company where we asked 48 employees in different teams to report their feelings of productivity at the end of each workday over nine weeks. A few weeks into the study, team members received an additional reflection exercise which asked them to reflect on the question 'How did your team help you to be productive today?' This question encouraged workers to recognize that the team can help their productivity. Results showed that this reflection exercise increased workers' individual feelings of productivity, with team members reporting up to an 8.8% gain. 3. Build Productive Reflection into the Workday Team members described how the reflection exercise created a 'higher awareness of what everybody is doing for the team' and made them more 'grateful for all the help and assistance that [they] have received for [their] tasks.' Additionally, individuals began to reevaluate their own contributions and behavior at work, saying that the daily reflections made them more aware that 'if I'm helping the team, then that is being productive, and I need to be a little less, maybe harsh on myself by not judging myself as being unproductive when I'm actually not.' However, for teams with low initial levels of cohesion, the exercise backfired and undermined team cohesion as well as feelings of productivity. Team leaders should thus focus on establishing team cohesion and only then use reflection exercises to solidify and further improve productivity. How can leaders act on these insights? They can take steps to create space for reflection during the workday. Dr. Meyer described the value of reflection in an interview with me: 'Our studies show that reflection helps shift focus from daily frustration to personal growth, empowering individuals to improve with each iteration.' Reflection exercises can become part of the daily routine, such as being built into an 'emotional commute' when transitioning out of work as employees complete reflection exercises while logging off and setting their goals for the next day. Through steps like reflection, leaders can help employees reconsider being productive as not a solo act, but a multiplayer game.
Medscape
23-05-2025
- Health
- Medscape
Intranasal Schirmer Test Shows Promise in Allergy Diagnosis
The intranasal Schirmer test (INSCH) may help detect allergic rhinitis during a nasal provocation test. Among patients with allergic rhinitis, the INSCH revealed significantly increased nasal secretions upon exposure to relevant allergens such as mites or birch. METHODOLOGY: The INSCH was performed by attaching Schirmer filter paper — widely used in ophthalmology to measure tears — to each nostril. To investigate whether INSCH could objectively assess rhinorrhea during evaluations for allergy, the researchers recruited 50 participants from March 2023 to March 2024. Half the participants underwent nasal provocation testing after they had a negative or borderline result for a tested allergen on a skin prick test or specific serum immunoglobulin E test. The other half were in a control group with no history of allergy. TAKEAWAY: Among patients with allergic rhinitis, INSCH wetting distance in significantly increased in the nostril that was provoked with an allergen (mean difference, 13.95 mm; P = .01). = .01). Individuals with nonallergic rhinitis showed no change in nasal secretions upon provocation with a potential allergen. A difference in wetting distance of at least 2.75 mm after provocation had a sensitivity of 81.8% and a specificity of 71.4% in detecting allergic rhinitis. IN PRACTICE: 'The INSCH could serve as a simple tool in everyday clinical practice to quickly objectify nasal secretion,' the authors wrote. SOURCE: Paula von der Lage, MD, with the University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland, was the corresponding author of the study, which was published online on May 17 in Annals of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology . LIMITATIONS: The study included patients who smoke, despite evidence that smoking can lead to drier nasal mucosa. DISCLOSURES: The study received support from the Theodor und Ida Herzog-Egli-Stiftung, Switzerland. This article was created using several editorial tools, including AI, as part of the process. Human editors reviewed this content before publication. Medscape Medical News © 2025 WebMD, LLC Cite this: Intranasal Schirmer Test Shows Promise in Allergy Diagnosis - Medscape - May 23, 2025.
RNZ News
16-05-2025
- Science
- RNZ News
Research, ethics, and artificial intelligence
Photo: Public Domain A study on artificial intelligence by Zurich University, approved by its own ethics committee, has been widely lambasted for failing to get informed consent of unwitting participants. How do you do research on how chatbots affect opinions on social media, without resorting to throwing artificial voices into an opinion thread on social media? Well, certainly not the way that the University of Zurich went about it, by secretly launching a series of Reddit profiles run by chatbots pretending to be variously a rape victim, trauma councillor, and a black man opposed to the Black Lives Matter movement. It's now been threatened with legal action after failing to get informed consent for the experiment. The research team only disclosed their experiment to the wider public after they'd finished collecting data, and their post outlining what they'd done attracted thousands of comments from users who felt their privacy had been breached. Reddit responded by banning the university from its platform and threatening legal action. The university has now promised the study's results won't be released to the public, and says they will be reviewing and strengthening their ethical review process. This particular issue may be resolved, but the discussions around the ethical guidelines when it comes to research using artificial intelligence are ongoing. "My initial thoughts were quite similar to a lot of people on Reddit, which was, 'They've done what?'," says Dr Andrew Lensen, a senior lecturer in Artificial Intelligence at Victoria University. By not informing Reddit users that they might be subject to this experiment Lensen says the researchers bypassed one of the fundamental principles of ethics. "Consent ... in a lot of AI research especially it does come back to the idea of consent, which is that if you are going to run a study with human participants, then they need to opt in and they need to be consenting in an informed and free way," he says. In a Reddit post the researchers said, "to ethically test LLMs' [large language models] persuasive power in realistic scenarios, an unaware setting was necessary," which the ethics committee at the University of Zurich acknowledged before giving this research the green light. But Lensen questions this reasoning, saying the argument of prior consent being "impractical" wouldn't get past any ethics committee in New Zealand. "The human ethics committee would be saying, 'well how can you redesign your experiment so that you can get consent, while still meeting the essence of what you're trying to study?'" he asks. It turns out there are other ways, and Reddit users were quick to alert the researchers to a similar study conducted by OpenAI. "[OpenAI] took existing threads and then made Arti-Chatbot to respond and then compared the Chatbot responses to the human responses... and then they had people essentially score them in a blind way, so the person scoring didn't know which was a Chatbot and which was a human," Lensen says. There has been an influx in the number of bots lurking in the comment sections of various social media platforms. It's hard to put an exact figure on how many there are because they're constantly changing and updating to become "more human", making them difficult to detect. But Lensen says that just means we, being the actual real people, need to think twice about any accounts we engage with. "It's not necessarily that the things posted by bots online are 'bad' ... but as humans we also want to know what is AI generated and what is human because we value those things differently," he says. Lensen says AI can be helpful when it comes to getting information and talking through ideas, but they can't fully replace a real-life person. "We tend to want human reactions and human responses, we don't want facts and hot AI takes," he says. Lensen says there is a need for more research like Zurich University's, with the addition of prior consent, to understand how people interact with bots and what the effect is. "Is it going to polarise people or is it going to bring people together? How do people feel, how do they react when you tell them afterwards whether or not it was a bot or human and why do they feel that way? "And what does that then mean for how we want the internet or social media or even our society to operate with this influx of bots?" Check out how to listen to and follow The Detail here . You can also stay up-to-date by liking us on Facebook or following us on Twitter . Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
