Older news items (pre-2010) brought over from the old website
Literate Arabic speakers have bilingual brains
Research has found that Arabic-speaking students tend to be less proficient in reading than other students are in their native language. Spoken Arabic comes in a variety of dialects and is quite different from the common written Arabic (Modern Standard Arabic - MSA). A new imaging study has now compared brain activity in a priming task among trilinguals fluent in MSA, spoken Arabic and Hebrew. The results revealed that the cognitive process in using MSA was more similar to that employed for Hebrew, and less similar to the cognitive process of using the spoken native language. These results not only help explain why learning to read is more difficult for Arabic speakers, but also suggests that the most effective way of teaching written Arabic is by using techniques usually employed for the instruction of a second language — including exposing children to written Arabic in preschool or kindergarten.
Ibrahim, R. 2009. The cognitive basis of diglossia in Arabic: Evidence from a repetition priming study within and between languages. Journal of Psychology Research and Behavior Management, 2.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-11/uoh-wiu110409.php
Relearning a forgotten language is easier for those under 40
A small study involving 7 native English speakers who had learned either Hindi or Zulu as children when living abroad, but now had no memory of the neglected language, found that the three who were under 40 could relearn certain phonemes that are difficult for native English speakers to recognize, but those over 40, like those who had never been exposed to the language in childhood, could not. The amount of experience of exposure in childhood ranged from 4 to 10 years, and it’s especially notable that the 47-year old individual who had 10 years exposure, having become almost fluent, still could not recover the ability to distinguish these difficult sounds. It should also be noted that where the ability was recovered (and recovered almost to native ability), it took about 15-20 training sessions. The findings point to the value of early foreign language learning.
[975] Bowers, J. S., Mattys S. L., & Gage S. H.
(2009). Preserved implicit knowledge of a forgotten childhood language.
Psychological Science: A Journal of the American Psychological Society / APS. 20(9), 1064 - 1069.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-09/afps-uio092409.php
Exposure to two languages carries far-reaching benefits
A new study provides evidence that bilingual speakers find it easier to learn a new language than those who only know one language. The study compared the ability of three groups of native English speakers - English-Mandarin bilinguals, English-Spanish bilinguals and monolinguals - to master words in an invented language that bore no relationship to English, Spanish or Mandarin. The bilingual participants mastered nearly twice the number of words as the monolinguals. The finding adds more support to the value of introducing another language to children at a young age.
[235] Kaushanskaya, M., & Marian V.
(2009). The bilingual advantage in novel word learning.
Psychonomic Bulletin & Review. 16(4), 705 - 710.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-05/nu-ett051909.php
Bilingual babies get a head start on executive functioning
A number of studies have pointed to benefits of being bilingual, but many people still believe that the experience of two languages in infancy may cause confusion and impair their acquisition of language. Now a new study shows that bilingual babies quickly adapt to different learning cues at seven months old compared with babies from single-language households. The study involved families in the Trieste area of Italy, where parents spoke to infants from birth using both Italian and Slovenian mother tongues. When bilingual and monolingual babies were first taught to look at one side of a screen in response to a sound cue (and in anticipation of a visual "reward" image of a puppet), then required to switch sides, it was found that bilingual babies quickly learned to look at the other side, but the monolingual babies never adapted to the change. The findings indicate that bilingualism gives an advantage above the purely linguistic, in executive function, which is consistent with other research indicating bilingual children have improved attention.
[1110] Kovacs, A. M., & Mehler J.
(2009). Cognitive gains in 7-month-old bilingual infants.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 106(16), 6556 - 6560.
http://www.livescience.com/culture/090413-bilingual-smart.html
Anatomical advantage for second language learners
Based on the size of a small brain region called Heschl's Gyrus (HG) in the left hemisphere, researchers found they could predict who would be more successful in learning 18 words in an invented language (those predicted to be "more successful learners" achieved an average of 97% accuracy in identifying the pseudo words, compared to 63% from those deemed "less successful"). The size of the right HG was not important. The finding was surprising, given that this area, the primary region of the auditory cortex, is typically associated with handling the basic building blocks of sound — whether the pitch of a sound is going up or down, where sounds come from, and how loud a sound is — rather than speech per se.
[1147] Wong, P. C. M., Warrier C. M., Penhune V. B., Roy A. K., Sadehh A., Parrish T. B., et al.
(2008). Volume of Left Heschl's Gyrus and Linguistic Pitch Learning.
Cereb. Cortex. 18(4), 828 - 836.
http://www.physorg.com/news104599345.html
Early music training 'tunes' auditory system
Mandarin is a tonal language, that is, the pitch pattern is as important as the sound of the syllables in determining the meaning of a word. In a small study, a Mandarin word was presented to 20 adults as they watched a movie. All were native English speakers with no knowledge of Mandarin, but half had at least six years of musical instrument training starting before the age of 12, while half had minimal or no musical training. As the subjects watched the movie, the researchers measured the accuracy of their brainstem ability to track three differently pitched "mi" sounds. Those who were musically trained were far better at tracking the three different tones than the non-musicians. The study is the first to provide concrete evidence that playing a musical instrument significantly enhances the brainstem's sensitivity to speech sounds, and supports the view that experience with music at a young age can "fine-tune" the brain's auditory system. The findings are in line with previous studies suggesting that musical experience can improve one's ability to learn tone languages in adulthood, and are also consistent with studies revealing anomalies in brainstem sound encoding in some children with learning disabilities which can be improved by auditory training. The findings are also noteworthy for implicating the brainstem in processing that has been thought of as exclusively involving the cortex.
[667] Wong, P. C. M., Skoe E., Russo N. M., Dees T., & Kraus N.
(2007). Musical experience shapes human brainstem encoding of linguistic pitch patterns.
Nat Neurosci. 10(4), 420 - 422.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-03/nu-rfm031207.php
Why learning a new language may make you forget your old one
The common experience of having difficulty remembering words in your native language when you’ve been immersed in a new language is called first-language attrition, and new research has revealed that it occurs because native language words that might distract us when we are mastering a new language are actively inhibited. The study also found that this inhibition lessened as students became more fluent with the new language, suggesting it principally occurs during the initial stages of second language learning.
[659] Levy, B. J., McVeigh N. D., Marful A., & Anderson M. C.
(2007). Inhibiting your native language: the role of retrieval-induced forgetting during second-language acquisition.
Psychological Science: A Journal of the American Psychological Society / APS. 18(1), 29 - 34.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/01/070118094015.htm
Bilingualism has protective effect in delaying onset of dementia
An analysis of 184 people with dementia (132 were diagnosed with Alzheimer’s; the remaining 52 with other dementias) found that the mean age of onset of dementia symptoms in the 91 monolingual patients was 71.4 years, while for the 93 bilingual patients it was 75.5 years — a very significant difference. This difference remained even after considering the possible effect of cultural differences, immigration, formal education, employment and even gender as influencers in the results.
[1271] Bialystok, E., Craik F. I. M., & Freedman M.
(2007). Bilingualism as a protection against the onset of symptoms of dementia.
Neuropsychologia. 45(2), 459 - 464.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-01/bcfg-css011107.php
How bilingualism affects the brain
Using a new technique, researchers have shed light on how bilingualism affects the brain. The study involved 20 younger adults of whom half were bilingual in Spanish and English. Similar brain activity, in the left Broca's area and left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), was found in bilinguals and monolinguals when the task involved only one language. However, when the bilinguals were simultaneously processing each of their two languages and rapidly switching between them, they showed an increase in brain activity in both the left and the right hemisphere Broca's area, with greater activation in the right equivalent of Broca's area and the right DLPFC. The findings support the view that the brains of bilinguals and monolinguals are similar, and both process their individual languages in fundamentally similar ways, but bilinguals engage more of the neurons available for language processing.
The study was presented at the Society for Neuroscience's annual meeting on October 14-18 in Atlanta, Ga.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2006-10/dc-drf101706.php
How does the bilingual brain distinguish between languages?
Studies of bilingual people have found that the same brain regions, particularly parts of the left temporal cortex, are similarly activated by both languages. But there must be some part of the brain that knows one language from another. A new imaging study reveals that this region is the left caudate — a finding supported by case studies of bilingual patients with damage to the left caudate, who are prone to switch languages involuntarily.
[405] Stockton, K., Usui K., Green D. W., Price C. J., Crinion J., Turner R., et al.
(2006). Language Control in the Bilingual Brain.
Science. 312(5779), 1537 - 1540.
http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2006/608/2?etoc
Fast language learners have more white matter in auditory region
An imaging study has found that fast language learners have more white matter in a region of the brain that’s critical for processing sound. The study involved 65 French adults in their twenties, who were asked to distinguish two closely related sounds (the French 'da' sound from the Hindi 'da' sound). There was considerable variation in people’s ability to learn to tell these sounds apart — the fastest could do it within 8 minutes; the slowest were still guessing randomly after 20 minutes. The 11 fastest and 10 slowest learners were then given brain scans, revealing that the fastest learners had, on average, 70% more white matter in the left Heschl's gyrus than the slowest learners, as well as a greater asymmetry in the parietal lobe (the left being bigger than the right).
[569] Golestani, N., Molko N., Dehaene S., LeBihan D., & Pallier C.
(2007). Brain Structure Predicts the Learning of Foreign Speech Sounds.
Cereb. Cortex. 17(3), 575 - 582.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn8964
Language learning declines after second year of life
A study involving 96 deaf children who had received cochlear implants during their first four years of life has found that the rate of language learning was greatest for those given implants before they turned two. Children given implants at three or four years of age acquired language skills more slowly. The finding supports the idea that there is a 'sensitive period' for language learning, and suggests that deaf children should get cochlear implants sooner (it is still relatively rare for them to be given to children younger than two).
The findings were presented on 16 May at the Acoustical Society of America conference in Vancouver, Canada.
http://www.nature.com/news/2005/050516/full/050516-1.html
Learning languages increases gray matter density
An imaging study of 25 Britons who did not speak a second language, 25 people who had learned another European language before the age of five and 33 bilinguals who had learned a second language between 10 and 15 years old found that the density of the gray matter in the left inferior parietal cortex of the brain was greater in bilinguals than in those without a second language. The effect was particularly noticeable in the "early" bilinguals. The findings were replicated in a study of 22 native Italian speakers who had learned English as a second language between the ages of two and 34.
Mechelli, A., Crinion, J.T., Noppeney, U., O'doherty, J., Ashburner, J., Frackowiak, R.S. & Price, C.J. 2004. Neurolinguistics: Structural plasticity in the bilingual brain. Nature, 431, 757.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/3739690.stm
Being fluent in two languages may help keep the brain sharper for longer
A study of 104 people aged between 30 and 88 has found that those who were fluent in two languages rather than just one were sharper mentally. Those fluent in two languages responded faster on tasks assumed to place demands on working memory, compared to those who were fluent in just English, at all age groups. This is consistent with the theory that constant management of 2 competing languages enhances executive functions. Bilingual volunteers were also much less likely to suffer from the mental decline associated with old age. The finding is consistent with other research suggesting that mental activity helps in protecting older adults from mental decline. The participants were all middle class, and educated to degree level. Half of the volunteers came from Canada and spoke only English. The other half came from India and were fluent in both English and Tamil.
[268] Bialystok, E., Craik F. I. M., Klein R., & Viswanathan M.
(2004). Bilingualism, aging, and cognitive control: evidence from the Simon task.
Psychology and Aging. 19(2), 290 - 303.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/3794479.stm
Learning a second language may not be as laborious as believed
A study of adult learners of a second language has revealed that their brains still possess a surprising facility for learning words — much greater than the learner is consciously aware of. College students learning first-year French demonstrated brain activity that was clearly discriminating between real and pseudo-French words after only 14 hours of classroom instruction, although the students performed only at chance levels when asked to consciously choose whether or not the stimuli were real French words. The greater the exposure to French, the larger the difference in brain response to words and pseudo words.
[428] McLaughlin, J., Osterhout L., & Kim A.
(2004). Neural correlates of second-language word learning: minimal instruction produces rapid change.
Nature Neuroscience. 7(7), 703 - 704.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2004-06/uow-baw061104.php
Beneficial effects of bilingual learning
A recent Canadian study comparing young monolingual children to bilingual found that bilingual children were much better at a non-language cognitive task. The 4-6 year old bilingual children were versed in a spoken language and a signing one. It was suggested that their higher cognitive skill was due to the increased computational demands of processing two different language systems.
Baker, S.A., Kovelman, I., Bialystok, E. & Petitto, L. A. (2003, November). “Bilingual children’s complex linguistic experience yields a cognitive advantage.” Presented at 2003 Society For Neuroscience conference. New Orleans, LA.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2003-11/sfn-ssb111103.php
Both languages active in bilingual speakers
An imaging study involving bilingual Dutch and English speakers suggests that when a bilingual person is speaking a second language, the first language is always active and cannot be suppressed. It was thought that an environment of total immersion in a language would provide massive exposure to a second language and suppress the first language. However, it’s now suggested that a large component of language immersion involves learning a new set of cues to the second language. To test this, students with no exposure to German or Dutch were taught 40 Dutch words. Some students learned the words in association with their English counterparts and others learned the words in association with a picture. Some of the pictures were oriented in the normal way and others were upside down or otherwise skewed. People who learned the Dutch in association with an object that was oriented uniquely were faster to later translate English words into Dutch. The mis-oriented pictures served as a unique cue.
The research was presented at the Second Language Research Forum, October 18, in Tucson, Arizona.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2003-10/ps-bla101703.php
Second language best taught in childhood
Sadly, it does appear that the easiest time to learn a second language is, indeed, in childhood. An imaging study has found that when grammatical judgement in the second language was compared to grammatical judgement in first language (as evidenced by performance on sentences with grammatical mistakes), there was no difference in brain activation in those who learned the second language as children. However, people who acquired the second language late and with different proficiency levels displayed significantly more activity in the Broca's region during second language grammatical processing. "This finding suggests that at the level of brain activity, the parallel learning of the two languages since birth or the early acquisition of a second language are crucial in the setting of the neural substrate for grammar."
[232] Wartenburger, I., Heekeren H. R., Abutalebi J., Cappa S. F., Villringer A., & Perani D.
(2003). Early Setting of Grammatical Processing in the Bilingual Brain.
Neuron. 37(1), 159 - 170.
Study finds there's a critical time for learning all languages, including sign language
It is generally believed that there is a critical period for learning a first language, and that children not exposed to language during this period will never fully acquire language. It is also thought that this might apply as well to second language learning — that those who learn another language after puberty can never become as fluent as those who learn it before puberty. A recent study suggests that this may also be true for non-verbal languages. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), it was found that patterns of brain activity in bilingual people who learned American Sign Language (ASL) before puberty differed from those who learned it after puberty.
[1431] Newman, A. J., Bavelier D., Corina D., Jezzard P., & Neville H. J.
(2002). A critical period for right hemisphere recruitment in American Sign Language processing.
Nat Neurosci. 5(1), 76 - 80.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2002-01/uow-sft010202.php
