Speaking four or more languages could lower risk of dementia — study

New research has found that having a strong ability for learning languages may help to reduce an individual’s risk of developing dementia.

Carried out by researchers at the University of Waterloo in Canada, the study looked at 325 Roman Catholic nuns in the United States who were taking part in the larger, internationally recognized Nun Study, which is a longitudinal study of religious sisters aged 75 and over.

The nuns were asked to report on how many languages they spoke, and 106 samples of the nuns’ written work were also provided for analysis.

The findings, published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, showed that just 6% of the nuns who spoke four or more languages developed dementia, compared to 31% of those who only spoke one language.

However, speaking two or three languages did not appear to have a significant effect on reducing dementia risk in this study, a finding which goes against those found in some previous studies.

When the researchers analyzed the nuns’ written work, they found that written linguistic ability appeared to have an even greater effect on reducing dementia risk than the ability to speak different languages.

“The Nun Study is unique. It is a natural experiment, with very different lives in childhood and adolescence before entering the convent, contrasted with very similar adult lives in the convent,” explained lead author Suzanne Tyas. “This gives us the ability to look at early-life factors on health later in life without worrying about all the other factors, such as socioeconomic status and genetics, which usually vary from person to person during adulthood and can weaken other studies.”


“Language is a complex ability of the human brain, and switching between different languages takes cognitive flexibility,” said Tyas. “So it makes sense that the extra mental exercise multilinguals would get from speaking four or more languages might help their brains be in better shape than monolinguals.”

“This study shows that while multilingualism may be important, we should also be looking further into other examples of linguistic ability,” Tyas stated.

“In addition, we need to know more about multilingualism and what aspects are important — such as the age when a language is first learned, how often each language is spoken and how similar or different these languages are,” she added. “This knowledge can guide strategies to promote multilingualism and other linguistic training to reduce the risk of developing dementia.” RGA/JB

source: technology.inquirer.net

Multilinguals do better at finding statistical patterns, study shows

Since most Filipinos are multilingual, does this mean we’re all in some way better at math?

In a recent study published in Psychological Science, researchers and psychologists from Hebrew University performed a series of experiments which suggest that those who had an easier time learning a new language may be better at detecting statistical patterns.

Ram Frost, lead researcher and psychological scientist, and his team from Hebrew University tested American students in overseas program on how well they picked up the structure of words and sounds in Hebrew. The students were tested two times, once in the first semester and again in the second semester.

Visual patterns

The students were also tested on their ability to detect visual patterns when asked to watch a stream of complex shapes. The students didn’t know that the 24 shapes they were watching have already been organized into eight triplets.  The order of shapes within the groups have been randomized but the shapes within each triplet always appeared in the same sequence.

Their results show a strong correlation between statistical learning and language learning. The students that who were able to detect the patterns in visual pattern test were the ones who had an easier time learning Hebrew and were able to understand the language better than their counterparts at the end of 2 semesters.

This study, which was supported by the Israel Science Foundation (159/10) and by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (RO1 HD 067364 and PO1HD 01994) provides us with a new insight on how people learn a new language and why some people are better at picking up different languages.

Language and visual perception

In the story in Science Daily on the study, Frost says "These new results suggest that learning a second language is determined to a large extent by an individual ability that is not at all linguistic…It's surprising that a short 15-minute test involving the perception of visual shapes could predict to such a large extent which of the students who came to study Hebrew would finish the year with a better grasp of the language."

This study presents the possibility that statistical learning may have a broad impact on other cognitive skills. And if a certain level of statistical or mathematical acuity is needed to learn a second language, then this implies that Filipinos, who are mostly bilingual, may have a higher level of statistical learning that may have not been exploited or explored.

In their paper, the researchers concluded that "This finding points to the possibility that a unified and universal principle of statistical learning can quantitatively explain a wide range of cognitive processes across domains, whether they are linguistic or nonlinguistic.” — TJD, GMA News

source: gmanetwork.com