Lowered conscious reasoning can aid sound-pattern recognition
Children often learn new languages more easily than adults do, but it’s unclear why. Some hypothesize that grasping a language requires absorbing subtle patterns unconsciously and that adults’ superior conscious reasoning interferes. New research suggests that, indeed, grown-ups might just be too smart for their own good.
But before exposure to the new words, the participants had carried out a separate test: pressing keys to react to letters and numbers. Some got a much faster, more mentally draining version of this test. Those who tackled the difficult version claimed greater cognitive fatigue afterward—but performed better on the subsequent language task. The researchers hypothesize that tired learners used less conscious analysis on the word rules: they were free to learn like a child.
In one participant group, some had first done the original mentally draining test. In another, some had received magnetic pulses to disrupt activity in a brain area that previous research has linked to executive control. In both groups, these interventions improved participants’ performance on the syllable task when they were unsure about their answers, indicating unconscious parsing of speech.
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