(Press-News.org) TORONTO, ON – A new study by University of Toronto researchers has found that kids' books featuring animals with human characteristics not only lead to less factual learning but also influence children's reasoning about animals.
Researchers also found that young readers are more likely to attribute human behaviors and emotions to animals when exposed to books with anthropomorphized animals than books depicting animals realistically.
"Books that portray animals realistically lead to more learning and more accurate biological understanding," says lead author Patricia Ganea, Assistant Professor with the University of Toronto's Department of Applied Psychology and Human Development. "We were surprised to find that even the older children in our study were sensitive to the anthropocentric portrayals of animals in the books and attributed more human characteristics to animals after being exposed to fantastical books than after being exposed to realistic books."
This study has implications for the type of books adults use to teach children about the real world. The researchers advise parents and teachers to consider using a variety of informational and nonfiction books, and to use factual language when describing the biological world to young children.
INFORMATION:
The study was recently published in the online journal Frontiers in Psychology.
To view the study:
http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00283/abstract#sthash.t6OeB5pQ.dpuf
For more information, contact:
Patricia Ganea
Assistant ProfessorApplied Psychology and Human Development
Dr. Eric Jackman Institute of Child Study University of Toronto
Tel: (416) 934-4502patricia.ganea@utoronto.ca
Media Relations
University of Toronto
Tel: 416-978-0100
media.relations@utoronto.ca
Kids' books featuring animals with human traits lead to less learning of the natural world
2014-03-25
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
MRI reveals genetic activity
2014-03-25
CAMBRIDGE, MA -- Doctors commonly use magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to diagnose tumors, damage from stroke, and many other medical conditions. Neuroscientists also rely on it as a research tool for identifying parts of the brain that carry out different cognitive functions.
Now, a team of biological engineers at MIT is trying to adapt MRI to a much smaller scale, allowing researchers to visualize gene activity inside the brains of living animals. Tracking these genes with MRI would enable scientists to learn more about how the genes control processes such as forming ...
Coerced sex not uncommon for young men, teenage boys, study finds
2014-03-25
WASHINGTON - A large proportion of teenage boys and college men report having been coerced into sex or sexual behavior, according to research published by the American Psychological Association.
A total of 43 percent of high school boys and young college men reported they had an unwanted sexual experience and of those, 95 percent said a female acquaintance was the aggressor, according to a study published online in the APA journal Psychology of Men and Masculinity.
"Sexual victimization continues to be a pervasive problem in the United States, but the victimization ...
Long-term productivity higher in university spin-offs than in other companies
2014-03-25
The study, published in the journal Technovation and written by Pere Ortín Ángel and Ferran Vendrell Herrero, covers financial data from two comparison samples of companies founded between 1994 and 2005. One sample is made up of 104 university spin-offs and the other is made up of 73 technology-based, non-university companies. The study compares what is known as the total factor productivity of these two samples. According to the study, in the university spin-offs this productivity is, on average, lower in the year in which the company is founded. Nevertheless, data shows ...
Autophagy in the initial stage is unrelated to the composition of beclin 1 complex
2014-03-25
Alteration of the autophagic process is involved in neurodegeneration. The beclin 1 complex is shown to play a key role in the initial stage of autophagy. Dr. Yanming Wei and co-coworkers from College of Life Science, Northwest Agriculture & Forestry University in China pointed out the amyotrophic lateral sclerosis-linked Cu/Zn superoxide dismutase 1 G93A mutant can upregulate autophagic activity in NSC34 cells, but that this does not markedly affect beclin 1 complex components. The relevant paper has been published in the Neural Regeneration Research (Vol. 9, No. 1, 2014).
INFORMATION:
Article: ...
Lipid rafts participate in the renewal of brain neurons in Alzheimer's disease
2014-03-25
Research over decades has implicated aberrant autophagy and lysosomal function as reliable markers and therapeutic targets for neurodegenerative diseases. Lipid rafts are shown to participate in lysosomal reproduction, and some lysosomal storage diseases are proposed to result from the accumulation of lipids in late endosomal/lysosomal compartments. Prof. Lin Yuan and team from Southern Medical University in China review the influence of lipid rafts on the progression of Alzheimer's disease through the modulation of aberrant autophagic-lysosomal pathway of amyloid-ß peptide, ...
Dab2: How to attenuate brain injury due to Alzheimer's disease?
2014-03-25
Transforming growth factor-beta (TGF-β) type II receptor (TβRII) levels are extremely low in the brain tissue of patients with Alzheimer's disease. This receptor inhibits TGF-β1/SMAD signaling and thereby aggravates amyolid-beta deposition and neuronal injury. Dab2, a specifc adapter protein, protects TβRII from degradation and ensures the effective conduction of TGF-β1/SMAD signaling. Prof. Jun Liu and team from Norman Bethune First Hospital of Jilin University in China used an adenoviral vector to overexpress Dab2 in the APP/PS1 transgenic mouse ...
The causes and consequences of global climate warming that took place 56 million years ago studied
2014-03-25
The growing and justified concern about the current global warming process has kindled the interest of the scientific community in geological records as an archive of crucial information to understand the physical and ecological effects of ancient climate changes. A study by the UPV/EHU's Palaeogene Study Group deals with the behaviour of the sea level during the Palaeocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) 56 million years ago and has ruled out any connection. The study has been published in the journal Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology.
"The fall in sea ...
A non-invasive, rapid screening method for Alzheimer's disease
2014-03-25
The apolipoprotein E gene ε4 allele is considered a negative factor for neural regeneration in late-onset Alzheimer's disease cases. Apolipoprotein E genotyping is crucial to apolipoprotein E polymorphism analysis. Peripheral venous blood is the conventional tissue source for apolipoprotein E genotyping polymorphism analysis. Blood yields high-quality genomic DNA and can meet various research purposes. However, because of invasiveness, taking blood samples decreases compliance among the elderly, especially neuropsychiatric patients. Moreover, blood specimens often ...
Small peptides as potential antibiotics
2014-03-25
Drug approval requires a deep understanding of the mechanism of action
The team of Julia Bandow, who heads the RUB's Junior Research Group Microbial Antibiotic Research, has been studying the MP196 peptide as a representative of a group of very small positively charged peptides that consist of some four to ten amino acids. Earlier studies had shown that MP196 is efficient against various bacteria, including particularly problematic multi-resistant pathogens that frequently cause sepsis. How MP196 kills bacteria remained unclear. However, in order for a new substance to ...
VTT: Building to take note of individual human thermal comfort
2014-03-25
Because people in developed countries spend about 90% of their time indoors, their sense of warmth becomes one key comfort factor for interior spaces. VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland has developed a new method for assessing the individual thermal comfort experienced by different user groups. The design of energy efficient buildings – such as day care centres, schools, offices and homes for the elderly – should pay more attention in future to the thermal comfort of user groups according to real needs.
The new method developed for assessing thermal comfort (Human ...