Scientists study how brain processes new words
Finnish scientists are investigating whether there is a difference in how the brain processes newly learnt words as opposed to more familiar words. As well as teaching us how the brain processes language at different levels, their research could have important implications for language teaching. The work is part of the Research Programme on Neuroscience (NEURO), which runs from 2006 to 2009 and is run jointly by the Academy of Finland, Canada's Institute of Neurosciences, Mental Health and Addiction (INMHA, part of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research), and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC). The aim of the programme is to promote multidisciplinary neuroscience research and encourage cooperation and networking amongst the scientists in the countries involved. Our vocabulary increases throughout our lives, and new words are constantly entering the language. For example, 10 years ago the word blog did not exist, yet few people would be able to tell you when they first encountered this word and learnt its meaning. The scientists, from Helsinki University of Technology and Åbo Akademi University in Turku, have already discovered that our brains use the same neural networks to process both new words (like blog) and older, more familiar words. They arrived at this conclusion after teaching 10 adults the names and/or functions of 150 ancient tools. The study participants had never heard these words before. Their brain function was measured by magnetoencephalography as they named the tools, both before and after the learning period. During the tests, participants were also asked to name familiar objects. The scans revealed that the brain used the same neural networks (in the left temporal and frontal lobe) to process both the names of the familiar objects and the newly learnt names of the ancient tools. 'If the subject had only recently learned the name of the tool, then the naming process induced an activation that was just as strong or stronger than the activation induced by the image of a familiar object,' explained Professor Riitta Salmelin of the Low Temperature Laboratory at Helsinki University of Technology. The study also showed that the way the brain processes the meanings of new words is different to the way it processes new names. Furthermore, subjects learnt new definitions even faster than they learnt new names. The findings were published in the journal Human Brain Mapping. The researchers are now focusing on how the brain retains newly learnt words. 'We are also conducting a separate series of experiments to find out how our brain learns phonetic structures and, on the other hand, how the brain learns to identify letter combinations that are typical of a certain language,' Professor Salmelin added. Meanwhile, the team is also interested in probing the role of grammar in language learning. The scientists are exploring how the brain learns to use the vocabulary and grammatical structure of an experimental miniature language.
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