Babies are more attentive when they hear two languages

Six-month-old babies benefit from bilingual to grow up. In two studies, scientists from the UK examined the attention and Learning of babies by analyzing their eye movements.

It turned out that babies who heard two languages, collected rule changes faster than children who grew up monolingual. This is probably because their attention is trained by the two languages is stronger, the scientists write in the journal Developmental Science. "Through the investigation of infants – a group of the population that still speaks no language – we have discovered that the real difference between a monolingual and bilingual individuals in later life is not in the language itself, but rather in the attention system, which in the language of directed ist", Ellen Bialystok, Professor of psychology at the University of York said. The researchers consider this to be particularly important, because attention is the Basis for all Thought and perception processes.

The scientists had shown the baby pictures on a screen while their eye movements recorded. The images were shown on different positions of the screen: there Appeared a certain color combination in the middle of the screen, followed by the next image, for example, on the right side of the screen, in a different color combination on the left side. All the babies were able to learn these rules. In a second study were changed after a certain period of time the rules. The children heard two languages, recognized the rule change faster than the monolingual trained.

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