Bilinguals' brains work differently

According to a new study, language juggling can rewire a bilingual brain.

Judith F. Kroll, a Penn State cognitive scientist, said that bilinguals use and learn language in ways that change their minds and brains, which has consequences, many positive.

Kroll added that recent studies reveal the remarkable ways, in which bilingualism changes the brain networks that enable skilled cognition, support fluent language performance and facilitate new learning.

Researchers have shown that the brain structures and networks of bilinguals are different from those of monolinguals. Among other things, the changes help bilinguals to speak in the intended language, not to mistakenly speak in the "wrong" language.

And just as humans are not all the same, bilinguals are not all the same and the changes in the mind and brain differ depending on how the individual learned the language, what the two languages are and the context the languages are used in.

"What we know from recent research is that at every level of language processing, from words to grammar to speech, we see the presence of cross-language interaction and competition," said Kroll, adding "sometimes we see these cross-language interactions in behavior, but sometimes we only see them in brain data."

Kroll presented recent findings at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.