Neuroscientists at TU Dresden present new findings on how the motor cortex can help learn foreign vocabulary more quickly. The new data suggests that learning techniques that involve the performance of gestures instead of simple audio or visual information can benefit learners.
The motor cortex is a brain region known to control the body’s voluntary movements. However, the team of neuroscientists have now shown that it can also help translating foreign language words into one’s native language. Their study has been published recently in the renowned “Journal of Neuroscience”.
The study
Participants in the study learned foreign language words by performing semantically-related gestures over four days of training. After the training, the participants heard the words that they had learned and were asked to translate them into their native language. A neuroscience technique known as transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), in which magnetic pulses stimulate specific brain areas, was used to interfere with processing in the motor cortex during the translation task. The scientists found that this interference slowed down the translation of words learned with gestures. This slowing was not observed in response to the control TMS, which does not interfere with motor cortex processing. In an additional control condition, participants learned foreign language words by viewing pictures, whose translation was unaffected by TMS applied to the motor cortex.
The results
The motor cortex contributed to the translation of foreign language vocabulary after a relatively brief period of gesture-based training, suggesting that performing gestures may be a valuable tool for picking up new words in a foreign language more quickly. “Interestingly, the effect occurred for both concrete words such as violin and abstract words such as democracy. Taken together, the findings suggest that our memory for recently-learned foreign language words depends on the sensorimotor context in which the words were experienced during learning,” explains first author Brian Mathias. “Many often-used teaching methods for learning new foreign language vocabulary rely on only audio or visual information, such as studying written word lists. Our findings shed light on why learning techniques that integrate the body’s motor system typically outperform these other learning strategies.”
StepUp Note
Muscle Power is Brain Power! This research shows how muscle memory can help us learn and remember. In the StepUp Classroom Enrichment Programs, movement paired with speech helps children learn and remember vocabulary, alphabet knowledge, and math facts. It also helps them move handwriting into muscle memory, through air writing, and rhythmic writing practice (Listen, Talk and Write). All StepUp programs are based on NeuroNet Learning, a neural network approach to learning which links perception (hearing, vision and balance) to active movement (hands, feet and talking). This research supports previous research showing us how our brains turn muscle power into brain power. StepUp's cloud-based programs enrich any PreK - Grade 2 curriculum. Try it free for 30 days!
Note by Nancy W Rowe, M.S., CCC/A
Reposted from Technische Universität Dresden