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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6250 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes  Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 17 of 23 15 July 2007 at 3:56pm | IP Logged |
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I've found that how detrimental multitasking is varies greatly on the type. If secondary task(s) are something that can be done 'in the background' or largely from habit, the negative effect is fairly slight. If they require quick interaction (things like instant messaging), it's significantly worse.
I suppose the extreme example is something as habitual and built-in as breathing; while it can become a focus, one does it in the background essentially all the time, no matter how focused. It also depends greatly on what the 'foreground' task is. Trying to combine coding or math with anything else is doomed to failure. Trying to juggle two coding projects is miserable. Trying to keep 5 instant messaging conversations going at once takes a bit of effort, but isn't significantly harder than doing one, unless the conversations require significant thought or are with extremely fast typists - neither of which are common scenarios. Exclusive focus is -extremely- valuable, but multitasking comes with benefits as well. For instance, in the real world, inputs aren't as clean and tidy and isolated as they are in most language programs,. I've found multitasking (with tasks which take a little bit of concentration, but not a significant amount) quite useful, and it's actually aided me in being able to handle and understand languages under less-than-ideal circumstances. I don't think it would make sense as a primary mode of study, by any means, but in moderation, I definitely find it useful. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| reineke Senior Member United States https://learnalangua Joined 6258 days ago 851 posts - 1008 votes Studies: German | Message 18 of 23 15 July 2007 at 4:01pm | IP Logged |
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As Poldrack explains it, the brain learns in two different ways. One, called declarative learning, involves the medial temporal lobe and deals with learning active facts that can be recalled and used with great flexibility. The second, involving the striatum, is called habit learning.
Wouldn't language learning involve more the second type? In that case... multitask away! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| reineke Senior Member United States https://learnalangua Joined 6258 days ago 851 posts - 1008 votes Studies: German | Message 19 of 23 15 July 2007 at 4:10pm | IP Logged |
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http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3809/is_200201/ai_n9 067689/pg_8
Rather interesting. Brain and language learning. Striatum mentioned. At a subcortical level, the main connections are located at the striatum. There is convincing evidence that highly automatized language skills are processed at this level. Agloti, Beltramello, Girardi, and Fabbro (1996) reported a case of aphasia where the patient had been bilingual in a Venetian dialect and standard Italian, two rather different languages. Her first and daily language was Venetian. However, after a stroke, she lost her Venetian language completely and was only able to speak standard Italian. It turned out that her brain damage was located at the subcortical level at striatum. The critical connection between the two major cortical language regions, Broca and Wernicke, was apparently upheld by insula, which is a cortical structure. Another one, a bit too medical: Recent functional neuroimaging studies support a likely role for the dominant striatum in language, as activations were found during various different tasks such as speech,25,26 syntactic processing,27,28 lexical processing,29 word memorisation,30 word retrieval,31 and writing.32 http://jnnp.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/76/7/940 Edited by reineke on 15 July 2007 at 4:20pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| reineke Senior Member United States https://learnalangua Joined 6258 days ago 851 posts - 1008 votes Studies: German | Message 20 of 23 15 July 2007 at 5:51pm | IP Logged |
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Very nicely explained. I'm off to stimulate my basal ganglia. I sure hope Volte's experiment succeeds.
August 5, 2008 Edit: this log has moved here I am combining this log with my earlier one tracking my progress in Japanese. Edited by reineke on 12 December 2008 at 1:33pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6250 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 21 of 23 15 July 2007 at 8:04pm | IP Logged |
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Which one of my experiments? And why half?
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| reineke Senior Member United States https://learnalangua Joined 6258 days ago 851 posts - 1008 votes Studies: German | Message 22 of 23 15 July 2007 at 8:19pm | IP Logged |
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The Polish audiobook thing. My basal ganglia were already overstimulated and in such a sorry state that I didn't pay attention to what I was writing. Multitasking! I wanted to say I'd be happy even with partial success :) Edited by reineke on 15 July 2007 at 8:22pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6250 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 23 of 23 15 July 2007 at 9:10pm | IP Logged |
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Ahh, yes. Well, we'll see!
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