People who are multilingual often hold a special connection to their native language.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology conducted a study focusing on polyglots, individuals who speak five or more languages, and found that there is a distinct characteristic in how their brains process their native language. The research revealed that when polyglots listen to any of the languages they speak, the same language regions in their brains are activated. However, the activity in these language regions is stronger for languages in which the speaker is more proficient, except for their native language. Surprisingly, when listening to their native language, the brain activity in the language network decreases significantly.
The study indicates that there is something unique about the first language acquired by an individual, which allows the brain to process it with minimal effort. This ease of processing could be due to the considerable amount of time spent using the native language. Evelina Fedorenko, an associate professor of neuroscience at MIT and the senior author of the study, suggests that this decreased activity in processing the native language compared to other proficient languages may be because the native language is easier to process, likely due to more experience with it.
The research team, including lead authors Saima Malik-Moraleda and Olessia Jouravlev, aimed to build on previous findings by exploring how polyglots' brains respond to languages of varying proficiencies. By studying polyglots, researchers can gain insights into the functions of the language network and understand how languages learned later in life differ in representation from a native language.
The study involved 34 polyglots, each proficient in at least five languages, with some speaking up to 54 languages. Participants underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans while listening to passages in eight different languages, including their native language, languages of varying proficiency, and languages they did not speak at all. The analysis of brain scans showed that the language network was most active when participants listened to languages in which they were highly proficient. However, this pattern did not apply to their native language, which elicited much less activity in the language network compared to non-native languages of similar proficiency levels.
The study also revealed that the brain's multiple demand network, responsible for engaging in cognitively demanding tasks, was activated when polyglots listened to non-native languages. This suggests that the brain recruits additional resources when processing languages other than the native language to aid in comprehension.
The researchers observed that polyglots showed greater engagement in the language network when listening to languages related to those they could understand, compared to completely unfamiliar languages. This finding suggests that the brain's response in the language network correlates with the level of understanding of the language being processed.
While most polyglots in the study began learning non-native languages during their teenage or adult years, future research aims to investigate individuals who acquired multiple languages from a young age. Additionally, the researchers plan to study individuals who learned one language from infancy but later shifted to another language, such as English, at a young age, to differentiate the effects of proficiency and age of acquisition on brain responses.
The study was funded by the McGovern Institute for Brain Research, MIT's Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, and the Simons Center for the Social Brain.
Source: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1036933
The study indicates that there is something unique about the first language acquired by an individual, which allows the brain to process it with minimal effort. This ease of processing could be due to the considerable amount of time spent using the native language. Evelina Fedorenko, an associate professor of neuroscience at MIT and the senior author of the study, suggests that this decreased activity in processing the native language compared to other proficient languages may be because the native language is easier to process, likely due to more experience with it.
The research team, including lead authors Saima Malik-Moraleda and Olessia Jouravlev, aimed to build on previous findings by exploring how polyglots' brains respond to languages of varying proficiencies. By studying polyglots, researchers can gain insights into the functions of the language network and understand how languages learned later in life differ in representation from a native language.
The study involved 34 polyglots, each proficient in at least five languages, with some speaking up to 54 languages. Participants underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans while listening to passages in eight different languages, including their native language, languages of varying proficiency, and languages they did not speak at all. The analysis of brain scans showed that the language network was most active when participants listened to languages in which they were highly proficient. However, this pattern did not apply to their native language, which elicited much less activity in the language network compared to non-native languages of similar proficiency levels.
The study also revealed that the brain's multiple demand network, responsible for engaging in cognitively demanding tasks, was activated when polyglots listened to non-native languages. This suggests that the brain recruits additional resources when processing languages other than the native language to aid in comprehension.
The researchers observed that polyglots showed greater engagement in the language network when listening to languages related to those they could understand, compared to completely unfamiliar languages. This finding suggests that the brain's response in the language network correlates with the level of understanding of the language being processed.
While most polyglots in the study began learning non-native languages during their teenage or adult years, future research aims to investigate individuals who acquired multiple languages from a young age. Additionally, the researchers plan to study individuals who learned one language from infancy but later shifted to another language, such as English, at a young age, to differentiate the effects of proficiency and age of acquisition on brain responses.
The study was funded by the McGovern Institute for Brain Research, MIT's Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, and the Simons Center for the Social Brain.
Source: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1036933
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