Learning foreign languages can help children develop auditory neurocognition more than music lessons. I study
He is about to end up run over, his mother saves himLearning foreign languages not only helps to broaden our cultural background, but affects the hearing system, even more than music lessons. This interesting discovery was made by an international team of scholars, led by the Faculty of Educational Sciences of the University of Helsinki, who have investigated the effects of learning a foreign language and music on a neurocognitive level. To do this, the researchers selected a sample of 119 Chinese children, aged between 8 and 11, recruited in an elementary school in Beijing. Students were randomly assigned to the English (60) and Music (59) programs to see if music had a major influence on the children's auditory neurocognition.
Brain responses associated with auditory processing were measured in children before and after programs through both an EEG and a behavioral test.
"The results showed that both the music and the language program had an impact on the neural processing of auditory signals," explains researcher Mari Tervaniemi, lead author of the study published in the journal Cerebral Cortex.
One more reason to learn languages from an early age
But, much to the surprise of the researchers, English lessons turned out to be more effective than music lessons. Participation in the English training program has indeed improved the processing of musically relevant sounds, particularly in terms of intonation processing.
Contrary to our assumptions, the group extracurricular program in a foreign language (i.e. English) facilitated children's early sensory-predictive processes in the auditory modality significantly more than did the program in music, particularly when the paradigm experimental was musically relevant - the researchers clarify - Our results are more surprising when they concern the promises of learning foreign languages to favor the encoding of musical characteristics. In this study, for the first time, we get causal evidence of the impact of a group foreign language training program to facilitate neural auditory processing more than a music program does.
And according to scholars there would be a very specific reason.
One possible explanation for the discovery is the children's linguistic background, as understanding Chinese, which is a tonal language, relies largely on the perception of tone, which potentially has endowed study subjects with the ability to use that trait. while learning new elements ”- explain the authors of the research - This is why attending the language training program facilitated the first neural auditory processes more than musical training.
According to Tervaniemi, the findings support the idea that musical and linguistic brain functions are closely linked in developing brains such as that of children. And both music and language acquisition manage to modulate auditory perception.
In short, this new study offers us one more reason to encourage children to learn one (or more than one) foreign language!
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Fonte: Cerebral Cortex/University of Helsinki
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