Participants with greater improvement in reading speed had stronger connections between the visual word form area and a different region of the left superior temporal gyrus language area, the study authors said.
“These findings have implications for predicting language learning success and failure,” study co-leader Xiaoqian Chai said in a news release from the Society for Neuroscience.
According to Arturo Hernandez, a neuroscientist at the University of Houston, “The most interesting part of this finding is that the connectivity between the different areas was observed before learning,” he said in the news release.
“This shows that some individuals may have a particular neuronal activity pattern that may lend itself to better learning of a second language,” added Hernandez, who studies second-language learning and was not involved in the new study.
But Chai said that the findings don’t mean that brain wiring is the only factor that affects a person’s ability to learn a second language, because the brain can be shaped by learning and experience.
The study is “a first step to understanding individual differences in second language learning,” and “might help us to develop better methods for helping people to learn better,” Chai concluded.
Also: Benefits of Being Bilingual
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