The Medical Daily – Dana Dovey
“New research conducted by Dr. Judith F. Kroll, a cognitive scientist at Penn State, has suggested that not all bilinguals are created equal. Although speaking more than two languages nearly always has a positive effect on the brain, the exact extent of this effect is largely dependent on underlying factors, such as the languages the speakers know and the manner in which they learned them. For her research, which was presented Feb. 13 at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington D.C., Kroll looked at how language use affected different parts of the brain in bilinguals. Among her findings, Kroll observed that although bilinguals usually speak only one language at a time, both languages are always activated in their brains. This means that the languages are in constant competition with each other for brain space.”(more)