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
