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Multilingual People Have Healthier, More Engaged Brains? (2016)

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Re: Multilingual People Have Healthier, More Engaged Brains? (2016)

#51

Post by zzzcpan »

leroy_masochist wrote: post #37

Interesting point about adults acquiring language through the left side of the brain vs. children acquiring through both hemispheres. I wonder whether that is nature or nurture -- does it reflect changes in brain structure in adulthood, or does it reflect the ways in which each respective group tends to learn languages?

That point is actually about emotions. I think what it means is that children are only developing brain circuity related to emotions and so develop emotional associations with the words in a second language, while adults already did and can understand, control and ignore emotions better and do not develop emotional associations with the words in a second language, or at least not as much.

Re: Multilingual People Have Healthier, More Engaged Brains? (2016)

#52

Post by grecy »

magwa101 wrote: post #27

Not clicking through to TED "everything will be solved with our optimism".

> TED "everything will be solved with our optimism".

At lot better to have dreams and plans and goals than "We've done nothing and we're out of ideas" which is the mentality in a few countries lately.

Re: Multilingual People Have Healthier, More Engaged Brains? (2016)

#53

Post by sbuttgereit »

This is the kind of news story that can be so incredibly misused once it gets into public discourse.

I would expect that while the study comments on an interesting data point for academics in the field, in reality the variance that you'll experience interacting with any one multi-lingual person or any one mono-lingual person will simply mean that it's trivia in day-to-day life.

Even in designing curricula for a large group where anything of significance in this study would be worthwhile considering, you'd still want to know how this compares to other fields of pursuit on some sort of outcome basis before yelling, "language programs for the win!" The thesis of the title and the short article (no I didn't watch/listen to the media) doesn't answer the relative merit question.

So maybe this research points to further study or is nice knowledge for knowledge's sake... but unless there's something more revealing in the linked YouTube video... I wouldn't read into it any more than that.

Re: Multilingual People Have Healthier, More Engaged Brains? (2016)

#54

Post by zzzcpan »

JamesBarney wrote: post #45

Later meta analysis that shows this effect is not true and is due to publication bias. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/29494195/

That meta analysis can't be more biased itself. Just from the first few lines it sounds like they are offended there are benefits to knowing multiple languages.

Re: Multilingual People Have Healthier, More Engaged Brains? (2016)

#55

Post by JamesBarney »

gwern wrote: post #34
awestroke wrote: post #13

I foresee a lot of comments from monolingual americans and brits trying to dispute this.

Well... Let's say that OP sounds like it may be oversimplifying a wee bit. The Replication Crisis already came for this one. (And yes, you should be skeptical of any claim to cognitive benefits.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_effects_of_multiling... https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/life-bilingual/20190... https://www.newyorker.com/science/maria-konnikova/bilingual-... https://www.theatlantic.com/scie…

Is it disruptive to your daily routine to be suddenly teleported to someone's bathroom anytime they whisper three times "this public policy intervention has an effect"?

Re: Multilingual People Have Healthier, More Engaged Brains? (2016)

#56

Post by [deleted] »

grecy wrote: post #52
magwa101 wrote: post #27

Not clicking through to TED "everything will be solved with our optimism".

> TED "everything will be solved with our optimism". At lot better to have dreams and plans and goals than "We've done nothing and we're out of ideas" which is the mentality in a few countries lately.

[deleted]

Re: Multilingual People Have Healthier, More Engaged Brains? (2016)

#57

Post by JamesBarney »

zzzcpan wrote: post #54
JamesBarney wrote: post #45

Later meta analysis that shows this effect is not true and is due to publication bias. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/29494195/

That meta analysis can't be more biased itself. Just from the first few lines it sounds like they are offended there are benefits to knowing multiple languages.

I don't think the best way to evaluate a study is to read the first few lines and guess at how offended the 8 researches are who wrote the paper.

Also I would describe the following as skeptical more than offended.

> Because of enduring experience of managing two languages, bilinguals have been argued to develop superior executive functioning compared with monolinguals. Despite extensive investigation, there is, however, no consensus regarding the existence of such a bilingual advantage

Re: Multilingual People Have Healthier, More Engaged Brains? (2016)

#58

Post by funklute »

zzzcpan wrote: post #54
JamesBarney wrote: post #45

Later meta analysis that shows this effect is not true and is due to publication bias. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/29494195/

That meta analysis can't be more biased itself. Just from the first few lines it sounds like they are offended there are benefits to knowing multiple languages.

Can you be a bit more specific? The abstract doesn't seem biased at all. They explicitly state that there is currently "no consensus", which, when warranted, is the best position to take in order to get unbiased results.

Re: Multilingual People Have Healthier, More Engaged Brains? (2016)

#59

Post by snakeboy »

fpgaminer wrote: post #21
presstumer wrote: post #15

I often wonder if learning a dialect of a certain field has a similar effect. For example math terms or a complex programming language with things like monads

I would think so. I often find myself cross-germinating the concepts I've learned from new programming languages, paradigms, and mathematics to other problems and discussions. Most recently I learned TLA+ which plays heavily with set theory; in particular the construction of logical "filters" on infinite sets. Ever since, those ways of thinking have become part of my mental toolbox that I interject into other areas.

I think in mathematics and programming, you often are working with an abstract idea or algorithm, projected onto the tools you are using. Be that the syntax/style/limitations of a specific language, or a branch of mathematics.

In that way, it is the same phenomenon of trying to express an abstract idea, projected onto the language in which you are speaking, with similar issues of syntax/style/limitations inherent to that language.

However, a human language opens a whole dimension of culture and history that is somewhat truly inaccessible from the outside. In this way, math and programming don't appear to me to have an obvious analog.

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