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Learning languages and the brain | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Lessons in Polyglottery |  | |
| ProfArguelles Moderator United States foreignlanguageexper Joined 7056 days ago 609 posts - 2102 votes  | Message 2 of 7 13 April 2008 at 6:06pm | IP Logged |
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I have written a great deal about the topic of how the intellectual motivations of mental exercise and mental expansion are the most effective forms of motivation in terms of ensuring success in language learning. As a corollary, there can be no doubt that such mental stimulation keeps the brain “young” and active into old age, just as regular physical exercise preserves physical health and vitality. In the case of any given individual, however, genetic and environmental factors also play great roles, of course, and in the end we are all mortal. Learning aside, in order to get the health benefits from mental exercise, it is certainly necessary to practice with daily regularity.
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| CrazyManAndy Groupie United States myspace.com/bobandbiRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5915 days ago 51 posts - 50 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 3 of 7 14 April 2008 at 3:23am | IP Logged |
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I am not a doctor, but I am seeing increasing reports that exercise, both mental and physical, is one of the best ways to fight off things such as Alzheimer's and keep our brain young. I also believe genetics plays a large role.
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| IbanezFire Senior Member United States Joined 6494 days ago 119 posts - 124 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, Russian | Message 6 of 7 15 April 2008 at 8:00pm | IP Logged |
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While this is not directly what you are asking for I think it might be of interest to you....
APA - Bilingual Protects WASHINGTON — Most will agree that two heads are better than one in solving problems. The same logic may be true for language and retaining cognitive processes as we age. Being fluent in two languages seems to prevent some of the cognitive decline seen in same-age monolingual speaking persons, according to the findings of a study appearing in this month’s journal of Psychology and Aging. It is established that learned knowledge and habitual procedures (crystallized intelligence) hold up well as people age, said lead author Ellen Bialystok, Ph.D., of York University, but abilities that depend on keeping one’s attention on a task (fluid intelligence) actually decline as people get older. But in her study, Bialystok found that those who have been bilingual most of their life were better able to manage their attention to complex set of rapidly changing task demands as measured by an experimental task – The Simon Task – that purposely distracts the test takers. Three studies compared the performance of a total of 104 monolingual and bilingual middle-aged (30-59 year olds) and 50 older adults (60-88 year olds) on the Simon Task. The Simon task measures reaction time without the subjects having to be familiar with the content, and it measures aspects of cognitive processing that decline with age, according to the study. The subjects watched flashing squares on a computer screen and were instructed to press a particular color key when they saw a square in a certain location of the screen. Half of the squares were presented on the same side of the screen where the correct key was located [congruent trials] and the other half of the squares were on the opposite side of screen where the correct key was located [incongruent trials]. Furthermore, to determine if speed was a factor in responding correctly in these tasks, a set of conditions that increased the number of different stimuli from two to four flashing squares was used. The bilinguals responded faster, said the authors, even when these stimuli were presented in the center of the screen and involved no interference from incongruent spatial position information. A control condition was used that presented two stimuli (flashing squares) in the center of the screen that produced no difference in reaction time, said the authors, thus ruling out an overall speed advantage as the explanation for performance differences between the bilingual and monolingual groups. In all three studies, monolingual and bilingual adults who were matched on background experiences and cognitive measures performed differently on the Simon task. Both younger and older bilinguals were faster than subjects who spoke one language in both the congruent and incongruent trials but also exhibited less distraction from the incongruent items regardless of speed. Importantly, say the authors, bilingualism reduced the age-related increase in the Simon effect (distractibility), implying that life-long experience of managing two languages attenuates the age-related decline in the efficiency of inhibitory processing. The authors propose that the ability to attend to a stimulus while ignoring irrelevant location information might be the same cognitive control processes used when using two languages. All the bilinguals in this study used their two languages everyday since they were 10 years of age. The authors conclude that bilingualism offers widespread benefits across a range of complex cognitive tasks. The research was carried out both at York University and at Baycrest's Rotman Research Institute, where Dr. Bialystok is a visiting scientist. Article: “Bilingualism, Aging, and Cognitive Control: Evidence From the Simon Task,” Ellen Bialystok, Ph.D., and Mythili Viswanathan, M.A., York University; Fergus I. M. Craik, Ph.D., Rotman Research Institute; Raymond Klein, Ph.D., Dalhousie University; Psychology and Aging, Vol. 19, No. 2. Full text of the article is available from the APA Public Affairs Office or at http://www.apa.org/journals/releases/pag192290.pdf. For more information about Psychology and Aging visit the homepage at http://www.apa.org/journals/pag/. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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