1. A multilingual brain is a smarter brain: recent findings from neuroscience and implications for education Dara Ghahremani, PhD Department of Psychiatry, School of Medicine Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior UCLA darag@ucla.edu

2. Multi-linguals What do they do that’s different from monolinguals? – Attend to the appropriate language in the context at hand – Ignore the irrelevant language for that context – Sometimes: rapid switching between languages

3. The Multilingual Brain How different is it from the monolingual brain? What behavioral differences are there? What are the implications for education?

4. Brain areas important for language

5. What’s different about multi-lingual brains? Abutalebi et al., 2013

6. Additional brain regions are used for second language

7. Attention: – Conflict resolution – Task switching Enhanced auditory perception Short-term memory Cognitive benefits of multilingualism

8. Cognitive benefits of multilingualism: attention Better at resolving conflict in the “Attention Networks Task” – Task: indicate direction of central arrow Because other arrows are in opposite direction, they create interference and slow down the response. Conflict resolution abilities are required.

9. Late vs. Early L2 Learners Tao et al study (2011) of L2 English learners in Australia. 3 groups: -English monolinguals -English-Chinese Bilinguals (early learners) -English-Chinese Bilinguals (late learners, > 12 years old) – Early learners show greater conflict resolution ability than monolinguals – Late learners show even stronger skills than early learners Attention can improve even when learning at later stages of development

10. Brain differences in resolving conflict Anterior Cingulate Cortex shows more efficient responding (less response to conflict) Abutalebi et al., 2012

11. Cognitive benefits of multilingualism: task switching Task switching tests measure how efficiently people can shift between different tasks (or mindsets).

12. Example of task-switching test Gold, et al. 2013 Shape blocks: indicate whether triangle or square Color block: indicate whether blue or red Switch blocks: mix of color and shape trials (need to switch between the shape and color tasks) People are slower during the Switch blocks than the others because of switching between two different tasks

13. Task switching in multilinguals More daily language switching (Finish- Swedish) leads to better ability to switch between tasks (Soveri et al., 2011) Older bilinguals show preserved task switching (Gold et al., 2013) – (see next slides)

14. Gold, et al. 2013 Older (avg. of 65 years) Young (avg. of 32 years) Older lifelong bilingual adults: -more efficient switching than older monolingual adults. -similar brain response to young adults

15. Enhanced sustained attention to auditory information Krisman, et al. 2013

16. Enhanced short-term memory in bilingual children (5-7 years old) Morales, et al. 2013

17. Implications for education and cognitive development Multi-lingual learning can enhance cognitive development Heritage language learners are already primed to have a cognitive advantage due to existing exposure Benefits for academic performance and communication skills Perhaps protective against ADHD and similar attention problems

18. Conclusions Multilinguals show enhanced attention, mental flexibility, auditory perception/attention, and memory Even in older age, we can see these advantages reflected in the brain Learning multiple languages can only promote better learning and brain development

19. References Abutalebi, J., Della Rosa, P. A., Green, D. W., Hernandez, M., Scifo, P., Keim, R.,... Costa, A. (2012). Bilingualism tunes the anterior cingulate cortex for conflict monitoring. Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991), 22(9), 2076-2086. doi: 10.1093/cercor/bhr287 Christoffels, I. K., Kroll, J. F., & Bajo, M. T. (2013). Introduction to bilingualism and cognitive control. Frontiers in psychology, 4, 199-199. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00199 Gold, B. T., Kim, C., Johnson, N. F., Kryscio, R. J., & Smith, C. D. (2013). Lifelong bilingualism maintains neural efficiency for cognitive control in aging. The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience, 33(2), 387- 396. doi: 10.1523/jneurosci.3837-12.2013 Morales, J., Calvo, A., & Bialystok, E. (2013). Working memory development in monolingual and bilingual children. Journal of experimental child psychology, 114(2), 187-202. doi: 10.1016/j.jecp.2012.09.002 Soveri, A., Rodriguez-Fornells, A., & Laine, M. (2011). Is There a Relationship between Language Switching and Executive Functions in Bilingualism? Introducing a within group Analysis Approach. Frontiers in psychology, 2, 183-183. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2011.00183 Tao, L., Marzecová, A., Taft, M., Asanowicz, D., & Wodniecka, Z. (2011). The efficiency of attentional networks in early and late bilinguals: the role of age of acquisition. Frontiers in psychology, 2, 123-123. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2011.00123