TEXT II
Why Bilinguals Are Smarter
Speaking two languages rather than just one has
obvious practical benefits in an increasingly globalized
world. But in recent years, scientists have begun to show
that the advantages of bilingualism are even more
[5] fundamental than being able to converse with a wider
range of people. Being bilingual, it turns out, makes you
smarter. It can have a profound effect on your brain,
improving cognitive skills not related to language and
even protecting from dementia in old age.
[10] This view of bilingualism is remarkably different
from the understanding of bilingualism through much of
the 20th century. Researchers, educators and policy
makers long considered a second language to be an
interference, cognitively speaking, that delayed a child’s
[15] academic and intellectual development. They were not
wrong about the interference: there is ample evidence
that in a bilingual’s brain both language systems are
active even when he is using only one language, thus
creating situations in which one system obstructs the
[20] other. But this interference, researchers are finding out,
isn’t so much a handicap as a blessing in disguise. It
forces the brain to resolve internal conflict, giving the
mind a workout that strengthens its cognitive muscles.
Bilinguals, for instance, seem to be more adept
[25] than monolinguals at solving certain kinds of mental
puzzles. In a 2004 study by the psychologists Ellen
Bialystok and Michelle Martin-Rhee, bilingual and
monolingual preschoolers were asked to sort blue circles
and red squares presented on a computer screen into
[30] two digital bins — one marked with a blue square and
the other marked with a red circle. In the first task, the
children had to sort the shapes by color, placing blue
circles in the bin marked with the blue square and red
squares in the bin marked with the red circle. Both
[35] groups did this with comparable ease. Next, the children
were asked to sort by shape, which was more
challenging because it required placing the images in a
bin marked with a conflicting color. The bilinguals were
quicker at performing this task.
[40] The collective evidence from a number of such
studies suggests that the bilingual experience improves
the brain’s so-called executive function — a command
system that directs the attention processes that we use
for planning, solving problems and performing various
[45] other mentally demanding tasks. These processes
include ignoring distractions to stay focused, switching
attention willfully from one thing to another and holding
information in mind — like remembering a sequence of
directions while driving.
[50] Why does the fight between two simultaneously
active language systems improve these aspects of
cognition? Until recently, researchers thought the
bilingual advantage was centered primarily in an ability
for inhibition that was improved by the exercise of
[55] suppressing one language system: this suppression, it
was thought, would help train the bilingual mind to ignore
distractions in other contexts. But that explanation
increasingly appears to be inadequate, since studies
have shown that bilinguals perform better than
[60] monolinguals even at tasks that do not require inhibition,
like threading a line through an ascending series of
numbers scattered randomly on a page.
The bilingual experience appears to influence the
brain from infancy to old age (and there is reason to
[65] believe that it may also apply to those who learn a
second language later in life).
In a 2009 study led by Agnes Kovacs of the
International School for Advanced Studies in Trieste,
Italy, 7-month-old babies exposed to two languages from
[70] birth were compared with peers raised with one
language. In an initial set of tests, the infants were
presented with an audio stimulus and then shown a
puppet on one side of a screen. Both infant groups
learned to look at that side of the screen in anticipation of
[75] the puppet. But in a later set of tests, when the puppet
began appearing on the opposite side of the screen, the
babies exposed to a bilingual environment quickly
learned to switch their anticipatory gaze in the new
direction while the other babies did not.
[80] Bilingualism’s effects also extend into the twilight
years. In a recent study of 44 elderly Spanish-English
bilinguals, scientists led by the neuropsychologist Tamar
Gollan of the University of California, San Diego, found
that individuals with a higher degree of bilingualism —
[85] measured through a comparative evaluation of
proficiency in each language — were more resistant than
others to the beginning of dementia and other symptoms
of Alzheimer’s disease: the higher the degree of
bilingualism, the later the age of occurrence.
[90] Nobody ever doubted the power of language. But
who would have imagined that the words we hear and
the sentences we speak might be leaving such a deep
imprint?
Adapted from http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/18/opinion/sunday/the-benefitsof- bilingualism.html
Considering the use of comparison, mark the INCORRECT option.
