[ti:Are People Who Speak More Than One Language Smarter?] [ar:Steve Ember] [al:Health Report] [by:www.51voa.com] [00:00.00]This is the VOA Special English [00:03.38]Health Report. [00:04.81]In the early nineteen fifties, [00:07.67]researchers found that people [00:09.91]scored lower on intelligence tests [00:13.39]if they spoke more than one language. [00:17.00]Research in the sixties [00:18.99]found the opposite. [00:21.93]Bilingual people scored higher [00:24.56]than monolinguals--people [00:26.98]who speak only one language. [00:29.66]So which is it? [00:31.40]Researchers presented [00:33.20]their newest studies last month [00:36.00]at a meeting of the American Association [00:39.17]for the Advancement of Science. [00:41.48]The latest evidence shows that [00:44.96]being bilingual does not [00:47.88]necessarily make people smarter. [00:50.68]But researcher Ellen Bialystock says [00:54.60]it probably does make you better [00:57.28]at certain skills. [00:59.33]ELLEN BIALYSTOCK: "Imagine [00:59.89]driving down the highway. [01:00.88]There's many things that could [01:02.81]capture your attention and you really [01:04.99]need to be able to monitor all of them. [01:07.04]Why would bilingualism [01:08.35]make you any better at that?" [01:10.21]And the answer, she says, [01:12.02]is that bilingual people are often [01:15.81]better at controlling their attention [01:19.11]-- a function called [01:20.85]the executive control system. [01:24.02]ELLEN BIALYSTOCK: "It's quite possibly [01:26.32]the most important cognitive system we have [01:29.44]because it's where all of your decisions [01:32.17]about what to attend to, [01:34.35]what to ignore, [01:35.72]what to process are made." [01:39.57]Ms. Bialystock is a psychology professor [01:42.93]at York University in Toronto, Canada. [01:47.10]She says the best method to measure [01:50.77]the executive control system [01:53.45]is called the Stroop Test. [01:56.31]A person is shown words in different colors. [02:00.85]The person has to ignore the word [02:04.27]but say the color. [02:06.63]The problem is that the words [02:09.18]are all names of colors. [02:11.86]ELLEN BIALYSTOCK: "So you would have [02:12.54]the word blue written in red, [02:14.41]but you have to say red. [02:16.09]But blue is so salient, [02:19.51]it's just lighting up all these [02:22.06]circuits in your brain, [02:23.18]and you really want to say blue. [02:25.05]So you need a mechanism to override [02:30.02]that so that you can say red. [02:33.63]That's the executive control system." [02:35.75]Her work shows that bilingual people [02:38.79]continually practice this function. [02:41.90]They have to, because both languages [02:46.01]are active in their brain at the same time. [02:49.88]They need to suppress one [02:53.24]to be able to speak in the other. [02:55.98]This mental exercise might [02:59.28]help in other ways, too. [03:01.39]Researchers say bilingual children [03:05.31]are better able to separate a word [03:08.93]from its meaning, and more likely [03:12.48]to have friends from different cultures. [03:16.02]Bilingual adults are often four [03:19.88]to five years later than others [03:22.93]in developing dementia [03:25.11]or Alzheimer's disease. [03:27.41]Foreign language study has increased [03:31.26]in the United States. [03:33.13]But linguist Alison Mackey [03:36.43]at Georgetown University points out [03:39.48]that English-speaking countries [03:41.96]are still far behind the rest of the world. [03:46.57]ALISON MACKEY: "In England, [03:47.44]like in the United States, [03:48.43]bilingualism is seen as something special [03:50.74]and unique and something to be commented on [03:52.66]and perhaps work towards, [03:54.84]whereas in many other parts [03:56.52]of the world being bilingual is just seen [03:58.82]as a natural part of life." [04:00.19]And that's the VOA Special English [04:04.42]Health Report, [04:05.54]written by Kelly Nuxoll. [04:08.21]Tell us about your experience [04:10.58]learning languages. [04:12.07]Go to 51voa.com or the VOA [04:18.91]Learning English page on Facebook. [04:22.83]I'm Steve Ember.