The BBC’s Simon Calder speaks with Prof. Evelina Fedorenko about the brains of polyglots, or people who speak multiple languages. “People who already have proficiency in multiple languages, their language regions appear to be smaller,” says Fedorenko. “It becomes so that you don’t have to use as much brain tissue to do the task as well, so you become more efficient.”
The BBC’s Simon Calder speaks with Prof. Evelina Fedorenko about the brains of polyglots, or people who speak multiple languages. “People who already have proficiency in multiple languages, their language regions appear to be smaller,” says Fedorenko. “It becomes so that you don’t have to use as much brain tissue to do the task as well, so you become more efficient.”
Inside Higher Ed reporter Lindsay McKenzie writes that a new AI system developed by MIT researchers to summarize the findings of technical scientific papers could “be used in the near future to tackle a long-standing problem for scientists -- how to keep up with the latest research.”
Inside Science reporter Yuen Yiu writes that MIT researchers have developed a new AI system that can summarize scientific research papers filled with technical terms. Yiu writes that the system “is a dramatic improvement from current programs, and could help scientists or science writers sift through large numbers of papers for the ones that catch their interest.”
CNBC contributor Tom Popomaronis highlights a study by MIT researchers that demonstrates how back-and-forth exchanges could help children develop stronger communications skills.
A storytelling robot developed by MIT researchers could be used to help boost language skills in young children and could help prepare children for learning in school, report Donna Lu for New Scientist. “If a child doesn’t start kindergarten ready to learn, it is very difficult and very expensive for them to catch up,” explains Prof. Cynthia Breazeal.
Fast Company reporter Adele Peters writes about Tarjimly, a non-profit MIT startup that connects refugees with a large network of volunteer language translators. The platform “has more than 8,000 translators who speak more than 90 languages, and can be used in nearly any situation where someone trying to help can’t communicate with someone in need,” Peters explains.
MIT researchers have developed a language translation model that operates without human annotations and guidance, reports Liangyu for Xinhua news agency. The system, which may enable computer-based translations of the thousands of languages spoken worldwide, is “a step toward one of the major goals of machine translation, which is fully unsupervised word alignment,” Liangyu explains.
New Yorker contributor Judith Thurman visits the lab of Dr. Ev Fedorenko, an alumna and research affiliate at MIT, who is studying the science of language. Fedorenko explains that she is focused on exploring, “how do I get a thought from my mind into yours? We begin by asking how language fits into the broader architecture of the mind.”
MIT researchers have found that holding back-and-forth conversations with young children may help boost a child’s language development, report Drs. Edith Bracho-Sanchez and Richa Kalra for ABC News. The study found that conversations created “stronger connections between the brain regions responsible for comprehension and production of speech.”
Reuters reporter Lisa Rapaport writes about a new study that shows back-and-forth conversations between adults and young children could help build speech and language skills. “We found that the most relevant component of children’s language exposure is not the sheer number of words they hear, but the amount of back-and-forth adult-child conversation they experience,” explains research affiliate Rachel Romeo.
In a new study from researchers at MIT’s McGovern Institute, “the authors pinpoint a specific way that piano lessons can help young children enhance their language processing skills,” writes Jamie Ducharme for TIME. “There’s evidence that early exposure to piano practice enhances the processing of sounds that extend not only from music, but also into language,” says Prof. John Gabrieli.
Prof. Robert Desimone speaks with Christopher Intagliata of Scientific American about his new research that shows how piano lessons can help improve a child’s language skills. Desimone and his colleagues found that, “piano lessons can heighten the brain's response to changes in pitch. And kids who got piano lessons were also better at telling apart two similar-sounding Mandarin words.”
A new study by MIT researchers shows that music lessons can help develop a child’s language skills by improving their ability to differentiate between different pitches, reports Kashmira Gander for Newsweek. The researchers concluded that, “musical training helps to improve language skills, and could even be more beneficial than giving children additional reading lessons.”
A new study co-authored by MIT researchers uncovers evidence that music lessons can help improve a child’s language skills, according to Xinhua. The researchers found that, “musical training is at least as beneficial in improving language skills, and possibly more beneficial, than offering children extra reading lessons.”