In a dutch study test persons were secretly filmed while they were saying different words. Depending on the emotional significance a word had, the subjects altered unconsciously their posture. Words about pride caused the persons to unknowingly raise their posture, while words about disappointment led to an involuntary slouch. 

The researchers link to the theory of embodied intelligence that says that that our mental life is fundamentally connected to acting on the world. Interesting here is also the question, to which extent machines need a body for intelligent behaviour.

Abstract of the study (via Wiley InterScience)

Success in life depends on intelligence, which is measured by IQ tests (see Do IQ Tests Really Measure Intelligence?). However, new research with MRI suggests that the integrity of neural wiring (which is inheritable) is a big factor in determining intelligence (see Is Intelligence Inheritable?)

Yet, intelligence can be influenced by a number of factors, including diet and schooling. Parents and teachers play a dominant role in intelligence.

Read “How to Raise Our IQ” (via nytimes.com) or listen to Professor Richard Nisbett’s lecture on “Intelligence and How to Get It” (via odeo.com). 

Red Herring announced on April 3, 2009 that semantic systems ag was awarded the Red Herring 100 Europe. Red Herring’s lists of top private companies are an important part of the publication’s tradition of identifying new and innovative technology companies and entrepreneurs.  

The Zurich newspaper Tagesanzeiger featured a story of the Red Herring 100 Europe with an introduction of semantic systems ag. (Articles are in German) 

The idea of brain plasticity has been discovered and forgotten many times over the centuries. The ancient Greeks accepted the idea, with Socrates believing that people could train their brains the way gymnasts train their bodies. However around the time of Galileo, it fell out of favour as scientists believed that for an explanation to be scientific it has to be mechanistic, or machine-like. For 400 years science has been using the wrong model for thinking about the brain, thinking of it as a machine. 

Thus the brain came to be seen as a complex machine with parts, each performing a single mental function - so much so that today the brain is described as a kind of computer. This doctrine of the unchanging brain meant that many born with mental limitations, learning disabilities or certain psychiatric problems, or those who suffered brain damage or strokes, were seen, almost by definition, as condemned to live with them.However discoveries in science contradicted this dogma. The brain can change itself, its very structure and function - with the use of thought. 

Watch the talk of Dr Norman Doidge, who coined “neuroplasticity” (via themonthly.com.au, part 1 and part 2)

Adam has reached novel scientific conclusions single-handedly in a british laboratory, but Adam is a robot, developed by researchers at Universities Aberystwyth and Cambridge. What’s special with Adam is that he carries out the whole scientific experimentation cycle just as a scientist: It develops hypotheses, devises experiments, physically carries them out and continuously interprets the results and repeats the cycle. (via cbcnews.ca)

Maybe even more impressive is the system developed by researchers at the Cornell University. The system tests pendulums and springs to figure out the physics laws that govern their movements - without pre-programmed knowledgy of the laws of physics. (via nsf.gov)

Do you remember how new and sophisticated robots can fool people to think that they are actually real persons (see If it looks like a human, plays like a human, fights like a human, it’s a …)?

There may be a few surefire methods to detect if your IM buddy is a chat bots. A quick and easy way is to test a chatter’s medium-term memory.

Read all the tipps shared by Kevin Warwick, the organiser of the Loebner Price (discovermagazine.com).