The Science Daily on May 20, 2009, featured an article on a recent study that stated that two or multiple language speakers were better placed to learn a new language than those that speak only one language. The survey conducted by the Northwestern University indicated that bilingual people had an advantage over monolingual people when it came to learning a new language. The study was conducted using sixty students from the university. A third of them were monolinguals, a third English Mandarins, and the other third English Spanish. (Science Daily)
Bi or multilingual more adept at learning a new language
According to one of the professors in charge of the study indicated, people often assume that those who speak more than one language are somehow gifted in that. This is however not true in all cases. The research conducted by Northwestern University showed that being a bilingual helped the learning of a completely different language. The three sets of students were asked to master words in another language that had no relationship whatsoever with either English, Spanish, or Mandarin.
The study found that the bilingual speakers mastered almost the double number of words as the monolinguals. (Science Daily) The article notes that the study has important implications on those considering the most appropriate age to introduce a foreign language to children. Therefore the study is important to educators, parents, and children as well.
Bilingual participants in the study and in general were found to have the following advantages or benefits:
- Their advantage extended beyond word learning. This includes learning words in one’s own language
- Through learning another language, the language acquisition strategies learned are transferred to other languages. This makes them better language learners in general.
- Bi or multilingual children become better language learners later on. (Science Daily)
The area of interest of this article in relation to psychology is psycholinguistics which basically deals with the processes that enable an individual to generate a grammatical and meaningful sentence. The study could be said to deal more on Morphology, syntax, and semantics. According to the article, an earlier study had indicated that bilinguals are better than monolinguals in holding back irrelevant information when learning a new language. This may be due to the fact that bilinguals hold back extraneous information when they speak.
Another interesting observation in the news article is the relationship between bilinguals and the Alzheimer’s disease. According to another research, the Alzheimer’s disease in bilinguals is held up by up to four years compared to monolinguals. Speaking two or more languages fluently made a huge difference in how symptoms of Alzheimer’s and other dementia set in. It was noted that bilinguals had a better developed system to control attention.
The functions in the frontal lobe of the brain help people to focus on the task they are involved in. This in a way prevents the mind from being distracted by other stimuli. The conclusions made were that bilingual people constantly make use of their attention control system. They are thus involved in exercising their attention control system therefore increasing its capacity. The same could be said of why bilingual individuals are more suited to learn a new language as opposed to monolinguals. (Science Daily)
Another article by science daily dated May 26, 2009, covered a recent study that found that parts of the brain that monitors emotions and behaviors in cocaine users show different levels of activity compared to non drug users. The study was conducted by the United States Department of Energy Brookhaven National Laboratory. The study also indicates that these different levels of activity maybe as a result of addictive vulnerability.
If treatments are directed at improving these particular functions of the brain, then the addicted individuals could be helped to resist cocaine. The study used seventeen cocaine users and the same number of non cocaine users who were then subjected to psychological tests. The study involved monetary rewards for those who were fast and recorded accurate performance. Researchers measured the amount of oxygen used in the targeted regions of the brain as an indicator of the level of activity.
Cocaine users were found to have decreased levels of activity in their brains compared to non-drug users. What was not clear before the study is the reason as to why these two groups recorded varying levels of activity. Was it because of the difference in ability in the two groups or due to varying levels of interest? (Science Daily)
The study recorded three main differences between the two groups. The anterior cingulate cortex that is more active when monitoring behavior was found to have reduced activity in cocaine users compared to non drug users. Secondly, another portion of the same brain part responsible for emotions was found to have reduced activity in cocaine users too. Emotion monitoring and behavior monitoring functions in the brain regions were found to be interconnected in non drug users but not in cocaine addicts. The study concluded that there were no observable differences in the groups in relation to either interest ratings or performance. Therefore, impairments found among the cocaine users could be attributed to addictive vulnerability. (Science Daily)
Conclusion
The first article in the Science Daily shows the psychological impacts of one being bilingual or multilingual. It is important to note that individuals that learn their second language later in life are not in this category.
This category comprises of those individuals that learnt both the languages that they speak simultaneously during their childhood. Acquisition of more than one language at an early age is seen to have a profound effect not only on the learning process but also other important medical conditions. The second article has major implications in the treatment of cocaine addiction. If treatment was directed at the monitoring behavior and emotional functions and these parts of the brain, then addicts could be helped to resist drugs.
Work Cited
Brain Behavior Disconnect in Cocaine Addiction. Web.
Chomsky, Noam. New Horizons in the Study of Language and Mind. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (2000).
Exposure to Two Languages Carries Far-Reaching Benefits. Web.