The one-day institute, organized by Echo鈥檚 Chair in Women鈥檚 Mental Health Research in partnership with the Faculty of Health, will take place Friday, Sept. 27, from 9am to 4pm, at 280N 91亚色 Lanes, Keele campus. Lunch will be provided. RSVP to owhchair@yorku.ca by Sept. 13.

The keynote address will be delivered by the inaugural Lillian Wright Maternal-Child Postdoctoral Fellow听Chang Su, looking at the effects of life stress, social support and cultural norms on parenting styles among mainland Chinese, European-Canadian and Chinese-Canadian immigrant mothers.

The day will also feature four researchers in the field of maternal-child health and several student poster presenters, as a chance for students, faculty and community members to share and learn.

Professor Deborah Davidson of the Department of Sociology in the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional studies will discuss familial and professional support during pregnancy and early motherhood for women with pre-existing diabetes. She will give a preliminary analysis of a view from the professionals in England and Canada.

Professor Nazilla Khanlou, the Echo Chair in Women鈥檚 Mental Health Research and academic lead of the Lillian Wright Maternal-Child Health Scholars Program, of the School of Nursing in the Faculty of Health, will talk about social support for immigrant mothers of children with disabilities.

Professor Tsorng-Yeh Lee of the School of Nursing will examine Chinese women鈥檚 experiences with maternity health-care services in Canada.

Professor Rebecca Pillai Riddell of the Department of Psychology will ask the question: Can pain tell us more? She will also look into understanding the relationship between early childhood mental health and parent-child immunization behaviours.

The student presenters include:

• Bramilee Dhayanandhan (PhD candidate);
• Michael Miceli (PhD candidate);
• Jennifer Noseworthy (RN, MScN);
• Monica O鈥橬eill (masters candidate); and
• Nicole Racine (PhD candidate).

For more information, visit the Echo鈥檚 Chair in Women鈥檚 Mental Health Research website.

The post Lillian Wright Maternal-Child Institute explores research from lab to community appeared first on Research & Innovation.

The study, conducted at 91亚色 and the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto, appeared online yesterday in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. It looked at children between the ages of four and six, concluding that 90 per cent of those studied showed significant cognitive gains after only 20 days of training on interactive, music-based cognitive training cartoons. These results were confirmed by imaging data which indicated that brain changes had taken place following the exercises.

Right: Cognitive gains were experienced in children between the ages of four and six after just 20 days of training on an interactive music-based training program. Click on the image to view one of the programs used in the study.

鈥淥ur data have confirmed a rapid transfer of cognitive benefits in young children after only 20 days of training on an interactive, music-based cognitive training program. The strength of this effect in almost all of the children was remarkable,鈥� says study lead author Sylvain Moreno, who carried out the research while at 91亚色. Moreno is now lead scientist at Baycrest鈥檚 Centre for Brain Fitness in Toronto.

91亚色 Distinguished Research Professor Ellen Bialystok, principal collaborator on the study, says the results also have impact beyond the benefits of musical education.

鈥淭hese results are dramatic not only because they clearly connect cognitive improvement to musical training, but also because the improvements in language and attention are found in completely different domains than the one used for training. This has enormous implications for development and education,鈥� says Bialystok, a member of 91亚色's Department of Psychology and associate scientist at Baycrest.

In the study, 48 preschoolers participated in computer-based cognitive training programs which were projected onto a classroom wall and featured colourful, animated cartoon characters delivering the lessons.

The children were divided into two groups: One received music-based training that involved a combination of motor, perceptual and cognitive tasks, and included instruction on rhythm, pitch, melody, voice and basic musical concepts. The other received visual art training that emphasized the development of visuo-spatial skills relating to concepts such as shape, colour, line, dimension and perspective. Both groups received two one-hour training sessions each day, over four weeks, led by Royal Conservatory instructors.

Researchers tested the children for verbal and spatial intelligence before and after the training using the Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence (third edition). The team also conducted brain imaging using non-invasive electroencephalography (EEG), which measures brain activity.

When children were retested five to 20 days post-program, researchers found no significant increases in verbal intelligence or brain changes for the children who completed the visual art training module. However, they found quite a different result in the children who took the music-based training: 90 per cent of those children exhibited intelligence improvements 鈥� five times larger than the other group 鈥� on a measure of vocabulary knowledge, as well as increased accuracy and reaction time.

The scientific team included Tom Chau, senior scientist at the Bloorview Research Institute and Canada Research Chair in Paediatric Rehabilitation Engineering, and Glenn Schellenberg, professor in the University of Toronto Mississauga鈥檚 Department of Psychology. George Brown College provided assistance in the early stages of software development for the training programs.听

The study was supported by a grant to Moreno from the Ontario Centres of Excellence, and a grant to Bialystok from the US National Institutes of Health. The scientific team also included Raluca Barac and Nicholas Cepeda of 91亚色.

Republished courtesy of YFile鈥� 91亚色鈥檚 daily e-bulletin.

The post 91亚色 study finds music-based training improves preschoolers' verbal IQ appeared first on Research & Innovation.

The award is, in part, based on the researcher鈥檚 record of early career achievement. For Weiss, that encompasses the research on developmental disabilities that he鈥檚 conducted over the last three or more听years. He is one of two recipients of the award this year, handed out by the CPA.

Right: Jonathan Weiss

鈥淭he award is really recognition for the type of research I鈥檝e been able to do prior to and since beginning at 91亚色,鈥� says Weiss, a clinical psychologist in 91亚色鈥檚 Department of Psychology, Faculty of Health. 鈥淚t鈥檚 been great to be recognized by psychologists, not just in the field of听developmental disabilities, but by colleagues from other fields.鈥�

He is co-investigator for three Canadian Institutes of Health Research-funded projects, two of which look at children with developmental disabilities and the third at understanding pathways to emergency health care for adolescents and adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Weiss also received a three-year New Investigator Fellowship from the Ontario Mental Health Foundation in 2010 to study people with developmental disabilities, who make up between one and听three per cent of the Canadian population. At least one in three people with developmental disabilities will have mental health problems or serious challenging behaviours as an adolescent or young adult, says Weiss.

His goal for this project is to learn what leads a young person with developmental disability to have mental health problems, and how it is related to their service use, their skills, academic success and family functioning.

For more information about the President鈥檚 New Researcher Award, visit the website.

Republished courtesy of YFile鈥� 91亚色鈥檚 daily e-bulletin.

The post Professor Jonathan Weiss receives new researcher award appeared first on Research & Innovation.

The study, published this summer, examined the effects of exercises that build positivity on more than 250 participants. It found that people with needy personalities reported lower self-esteem after listening to three or four uplifting songs of their choosing every day over the course of a week.

Needy individuals suffer from deep insecurities and need interpersonal support to ward off acute feelings of despair and loneliness. They tend to be submissive in interpersonal relationships, feel helpless and fear abandonment.

鈥淲e were quite surprised at this result,鈥� says study lead author Myriam Mongrain (right), professor of psychology in 91亚色鈥檚 Faculty of Health. 鈥淯ntil now, the vast majority of studies have suggested that positive psychology exercises result in either improvements for participants or no change over time. This result hints that self-help exercises may actually be detrimental for those with needy personalities,鈥� she says.

Study participants were randomly assigned one of three daily exercises: recalling five things that they were grateful for over the course of the day; listening to three or four uplifting songs of their choosing; or writing about a specific memory from their early life (the latter was used as a control exercise). Participants then completed questionnaires to measure changes in their mood and outlook; these same measures were administered at intervals of one, three and six months post-study.

Those with needy personalities reported no significant benefits from the gratitude exercise, while the music exercise dragged them down further. Highly self-critical individuals experienced the greatest improvement to their subjective happiness when they practiced the gratitude exercise. They also demonstrated a larger increase in self-esteem and greater decrease in physical symptom severity in both the gratitude condition and the music condition.

鈥淲e hypothesized that listening to happy music was a kind of self-soothing that would benefit people with needy personalities. However, this independent activity, which involved no interaction with others, may have had a negative effect on participants,鈥� says Mongrain.

鈥淣eedy people rely on secure intimate bonds with others in order to experience well-being, and they may have felt frustrated with the lack of improvement and expressed their disappointment on the outcome measures. Given these results, one-on-one counselling is likely more appropriate for this personality type.鈥�

The study was published in August 2011 in the Journal of Positive Psychology. It is co-authored by Susan Sergeant, a PhD student in 91亚色鈥檚 Department of Psychology.

Republished courtesy of YFile鈥� 91亚色鈥檚 daily e-bulletin.

The post 91亚色 study finds self-help no help for certain personality types appeared first on Research & Innovation.

The new directors are Professor Colin Coates, director of the Robarts Centre for Canadian Studies (RCCS); Professor Laurence Harris, director of the Centre for Vision Research (CVR); Professor Christina Kraenzle, director of the Canadian Centre for German听& European Studies (CCGES); Professor David Mutimer, director of the Centre for International听& Security Studies (YCISS); and Professor Lisa Philipps, director of the Centre for Public Policy & Law (YCPPL).听听

鈥淥n behalf of the 91亚色 research community, I would like to congratulate Professors Coates, Harris, Kraenzle, Mutimer and Philipps on their appointments,鈥� said Robert Hach茅, 91亚色's vice-president research & innovation.听鈥淭heir leadership expertise will be essential to further strengthening the unique and exciting opportunities for interdisciplinary research, collaborations and partnerships at 91亚色鈥檚 research centres and institutes.鈥�

Colin Coates (left), Canada Research Chair in Cultural Landscapes, is also professor in the Canadian Studies program at Glendon College and president of the Canadian Studies Network-R茅seau d鈥櫭﹖udes canadiennes.听His research examines political culture in New France and the history of Canadian utopias.听He also conducts research in the area of environmental history, and is an executive member听of the听Network in Canadian History & Environment 鈥� Nouvelle initiative canadienne en histoire de l鈥檈nvironnement, funded by听the Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). Coates has co-edited and authored several books including, Introduction aux 茅tudes canadiennes: histoires, identit茅s et cultures (with Professor Geoffrey Ewen, Glendon) and Visions: the Canadian History Modules Project (with Professor Marcel Martel, Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies,听along with four colleagues from other universities), Majesty in Canada: Essays on the Role of Royalty among others.听Coates won the Lionel Groulx-Yves Saint-Germain Foundation鈥檚 prize for Heroines and History 鈥� Representations of Madeleine de Verch猫res and Laura Secord (co-authored with Cecilia Morgan of OISE).

Laurence Harris (right)听is a professor in the Department of Psychology, Faculty of Health, a member of the graduate programs in Kinesiology听& Health Science and in Biology, and has served as chair of the Psychology Department. He is the director the Multisensory Integration Laboratory at 91亚色, which investigates how information from visual, auditory, vestibular, proprioceptive and tactile senses is combined by the brain to create our perception of body and space. Applications of his research include the design of virtual environments and improving perception in situations where sensory information is impoverished, such as in the unusual environments of underwater or in space, in ageing or in clinical conditions such as partial blindness or Parkinson鈥檚 disease.听Recently, Harris听ran an听experiment on the International Space Station looking at astronauts鈥� perception of orientation. He is the author of听more than听100 scientific articles and has edited nine books on topics pertaining to vision including Vision in 3D Environments, Cortical Mechanisms of Vision, Seeing Spatial Form, and Levels of Perception. 听He is editor-in-chief of the journal Seeing and Perceiving: a journal of multisensory science.

Christina Kraenzle (left) is a professor in the Department of Languages, Literatures听& Linguistics (DLLL) in the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies.听She has served as a CCGES affiliate since 2004 and been a member of the centre鈥檚 executive committee since 2005 through her role as the coordinator of the German Studies Program within DLLL.听Kraenzle鈥檚 research explores modern German literature, film and culture, with a focus on transnational cultural production, migration, travel and globalization. Her recent publications include Mapping Channels Between Ganges and Rhein: German-Indian Cross-Cultural Relations (with J枚rg Esleben and Sukanya Kulkarni, 2008) as well as articles in The German Quarterly, German Life and Letters, Transit: A Journal of Travel, Migration and Multiculturalism in the German-Speaking World, and the volume Searching for Sebald: Photography after W. G. Sebald.

David Mutimer (right), a professor in the Department of Political Science, is also the founding editor of Critical Studies on Security and the editor of The Canadian Annual Review of Politics and Public Affairs.听 He has been a member of YCISS since 1987 and has previously served as its deputy director.听Mutimer was also听a visiting professor at the University of Geneva in Switzerland and Newcastle University in the United Kingdom (UK), as well as a principal research fellow in the Department of Peace Studies at the University of Bradford in the UK.听Mutimer鈥檚 research considers issues of contemporary international security through lenses provided by critical social theory and explores the reproduction of security in and through popular culture.听His research has focused on various aspects of weapons production and control, and more recently on the politics of the global war on terror, and of the regional wars around the world which are being fought by Canada and its allies.听Mutimer is presently leading a SSHRC-funded international research project on arms export controls.听His recent published work includes journal articles in Studies in Social Justice, The Cambridge Review of International Affairs and Contemporary Security Policy among others.

Lisa Philipps (left) has been a faculty member听at Osgoode Hall Law School since 1996.听Prior to that, she held appointments in the faculties of law at the University of Victoria and the University of British Columbia, and has held visiting professorships at Melbourne Law School, University College London and the University of Toronto among other institutions.听She served as associate dean research, graduate studies & institutional relations at Osgoode from 2009 to 2011.听Philipps' research focuses on tax law, budgets and feminist legal studies.听She has published widely on topics, including听fiscal transparency, income splitting, gender听budgeting, the distributional impact of tax cuts, the tax treatment of unpaid work, charitable tax incentives and more. Most recently she published two co-edited books on Tax Expenditures: State of the Art and Challenging Gender Inequality in Tax Policy Making: Comparative Perspectives.听听

In all, 91亚色听lists 29 research centres and institutes.

Republished courtesy of YFile鈥� 91亚色鈥檚 daily e-bulletin.

The post New directors appointed to five research centres appeared first on Research & Innovation.

Election to Fellowship in the CAHS is considered one of the highest honours for individuals in the Canadian health sciences community. Pepler was elected to the CAHS for her demonstrated leadership, creativity, distinctive competencies and a commitment to advance academic health science.

Left: Debra Pepler

鈥淚 am very honoured to be nominated as a Fellow and look forward to contributing to the academy's efforts in health promotion through our collaborative efforts to promote the healthy development of children and youth through healthy relationships,鈥� says Pepler.

Pepler has conducted two major research programs on children at risk within the context of peer relationships at school and in context of the family.听To study aggression and bullying, she developed an innovative methodology to observe children鈥檚 interactions, which would normally be hidden from adults.

She was awarded a Networks of Centres of Excellence: New Initiatives grant to establish PREVNet 鈥� Promoting Relationships & Eliminating Violence Network together with Wendy Craig, her first 91亚色 PhD student. This collaborative and interdisciplinary initiative brings together 62 researchers from 27 Canadian universities and 49 national organizations. The grant, the first stage of Canada鈥檚 largest funding mechanism, is the culmination of many years of work for Pepler, who has been tirelessly involved in community-based research and public policy development on pressing social issues related to children and youth. 听

Pepler鈥檚 research has changed the way听people think about bullying, aggression and other forms of violence, especially among marginalized and alienated young people.听She speaks widely to professional and community audiences about children at risk.听She听has also edited four volumes in the past four years on understanding and addressing children鈥檚 aggression, bullying and victimization.

A professor in 91亚色鈥檚 Department of Psychology in the Faculty of Health since 1988, Pepler was also director of the LaMarsh Centre for Research on Violence & Conflict Resolution from 1994 to 2002. She听has been听a senior associate scientist at the Hospital for Sick Children since 2001.

In honour of her research, Pepler has previously been awarded the Contribution to Knowledge Award from the Psychology Foundation of Canada, the Educator of the Year Award from Phi Delta Kappa (Toronto), the University of Waterloo Arts in Academia Award and the Canadian Psychological Association Award for Distinguished Contributions to Public or Community Service.

Established in 2004, the works in partnership with the Royal Society of Canada and the Canadian Academy of Engineering to form the three member academies of the Council of Canadian Academies. The CAHS provides timely, informed and unbiased assessments of urgent issues affecting the health of Canadians.

Republished courtesy of YFile鈥� 91亚色鈥檚 daily e-bulletin.

The post Professor Debra Pepler inducted into Canadian Academy of Health Sciences appeared first on Research & Innovation.

The study is the first to look at the effects of yoga on cortisol levels in women with fibromyalgia. The condition, which predominantly affects women, is characterized by chronic pain and fatigue; common symptoms include muscle stiffness, sleep disturbances, gastrointestinal discomfort, anxiety and depression.

Previous research has found that women with fibromyalgia have lower-than-average cortisol levels, which contribute to pain, fatigue and stress sensitivity. According to the study, participants鈥� saliva revealed elevated levels of total cortisol following a program of 75 minutes of hatha yoga twice weekly over the course of eight weeks.

"Ideally, our cortisol levels peak about 30 to 40 minutes after we get up in the morning and decline throughout the day until we鈥檙e ready to go to sleep," says the study鈥檚 lead author, Kathryn Curtis, a PhD student in 91亚色鈥檚 Department of Psychology, Faculty of Health. "The secretion of the hormone, cortisol, is dysregulated in women with fibromyalgia," she says.

Right: Yoga affects the release of cortisol

Cortisol is a steroid hormone that is produced and released by the adrenal gland and functions as a component of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis in response to stress.

"Hatha yoga promotes physical relaxation by decreasing activity of the sympathetic nervous system, which lowers heart rate and increases breath volume. We believe this in turn has a positive effect on the HPA axis," says Curtis.

Participants completed questionnaires to determine pain intensity pre- and post-study; they reported significant reductions in pain and associated symptoms, as well as psychological benefits. They felt less helpless, were more accepting of their condition and were less likely to "catastrophize" over current or future symptoms.

"We saw their levels of mindfulness increase 鈥� they were better able to detach from their psychological experience of pain," Curtis says. Mindfulness is a form of active mental awareness rooted in Buddhist traditions; it is achieved by paying total attention to the present moment with a non-judgmental awareness of inner and outer experiences.

"Yoga promotes this concept 鈥� that we are not our bodies, our experiences, or our pain. This is extremely useful in the management of pain," she says. "Moreover, our findings strongly suggest that psychological changes in turn affect our experience of physical pain."

The study 鈥� Curtis鈥檚 thesis 鈥� was published yesterday in the Journal of Pain Research. It is co-authored by her supervisor, 91亚色 psychology Professor Joel Katz, Canada Research Chair in Health Psychology, and Anna Osadchuk, a 91亚色 undergraduate student.

Curtis was supported by a Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) Canada Graduate Scholarship and a CIHR Strategic Training Grant Fellowship in Pain: Molecules to Community.

Republished courtesy of YFile 鈥� 91亚色鈥檚 daily e-bulletin.

The post 91亚色 study finds that yoga boosts stress-busting hormone and reduces pain appeared first on Research & Innovation.

Weighing just 1.3 kg and measuring 80cm x 80cm x 30cm, the Aeryon Scout is flying no more than 60 metres off the ground, with a video camera focused on buildings, walkways and trees,听as well as听the activity around them.

鈥淢apping of urban environments is typically done from aircraft flying high above the city, or vehicles on the ground 鈥� i.e. Google Street View. But a lot of the important details lie somewhere in between,鈥� says James Elder, a professor in both the Department of Computer Science & Engineering and the Department of Psychology at 91亚色. 鈥淭his vehicle 鈥� the Aeryon Scout 鈥� can acquire the high-resolution imagery of building facades required to reconstruct the detailed 3D structure of our cities.鈥�

[stream provider=youtube flv=http%3A//www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3D_RcdaIdRmHs%26feature%3Dplayer_embedded img=x:/img.youtube.com/vi/_RcdaIdRmHs/0.jpg embed=false share=false width=400 height=300 dock=true controlbar=over bandwidth=high autostart=false /]

The research team has developed proprietary computer vision algorithms and a geospatial web-mapping system to detect and track people and vehicles in real-time video streamed from city cameras, and then to project them as avatars into 3-D city models. This allows the life of the city to be experienced in a natural 3-D context, and viewed from any angle through web browsers. This is augmented by visual intelligence about the scene 鈥� for example, recognition of objects and activities, as well as things like vehicle speed.

Right: A close-up of the Aeryon Scout. Photo by Keith LaPlume

The vertical takeoff and landing missions, continuing today, are a small but important part of the ongoing , a major initiative funded by the federal government鈥榮 Networks of Centres of Excellence program and the provincial government鈥檚 Ontario Centres of Excellence.

The larger goal of the project is to develop a system that gives people a window into the life of a city, whether it is an urban planner watching how people are using city sidewalks, police or security officials trying to prevent crimes or a tourist wondering what is happening at Dundas Square.

The UAV component of the project is a collaboration between Professor Claire Samson鈥檚 lab in the Department of Earth Sciences at Carleton University, Elder鈥檚 Human & Computer Vision Lab in 91亚色鈥檚 Centre for Vision Research and Professor Gunho Sohn鈥檚 lab in the Department of Earth & Space Science & Engineering in 91亚色鈥檚 Faculty of Science & Engineering.

Researchers from four other Canadian universities are also involved in the project, along with Aeryon Labs of Waterloo, Ont.,听which designs and manufactures the Scout UAV, and Neptec of Ottawa, which is providing 3-D structure from motion software technology. The Aeryon Scout is piloted (from the ground) by Tara Jones, as part of the requirements for her master's in earth sciences from Carleton University.

Republished courtesy of YFile鈥� 91亚色鈥檚 daily e-bulletin.

The post 91亚色 Centre for Vision Research collaborates on mission to fly unmanned aerial vehicle on campus as part of project to design 3-D technology appeared first on Research & Innovation.

Research demonstrates that bilingual children develop greater mental flexibility, a finer grasp of abstract concepts and stronger working memory鈥�. The bilingual person is primed, therefore, in a way that monolinguals are not, to seek out and, at times separate, the meaning that a person is trying to convey from the words they are using to do so; the message becomes an abstraction embedded within the words 鈥� their setting.

In a study headed up by Ellen Bialystok at 91亚色 [Department of Psychology, Faculty of Health] in Toronto, two groups of children 鈥� each group was comparable but differed in that one was composed exclusively of monolingual students and the other contained only bilingual students 鈥� were asked whether the sentence, "Do apples have noses?" was grammatically correct. The monolinguals were stumped. The bilinguals responded something like this, "The sentence is silly but grammatically correct." From this and other similar studies, Bialystok sums up the results of her overall findings this way: "Bilinguals we found manifested a cognitive system with the ability to attend to important information and ignore the less important."

Willingness to accept the possibility that what one hears is not always what the other means to say is an important step in the direction of creating and maintaining emotional safety in your relationship鈥�. This is one definition of mindful listening.

Posted by Arielle Zomer, research communications officer, with files courtesy of YFile鈥� 91亚色鈥檚 daily e-bulletin.

The post Professor Ellen Bialystok's study cited in Psychology Today story on bilingualism and relationships appeared first on Research & Innovation.

Her good news: Among other benefits, the regular use of two languages appears to delay the onset of Alzheimer鈥檚 disease symptoms. Dr. Bialystok, 62, a distinguished research professor of psychology at 91亚色 [Faculty of Health] in Toronto, was for her contributions to social science. We spoke for two hours in a Washington hotel room in February and again, more recently, by telephone. An edited version of the two conversations follows.

Q. How did you begin studying bilingualism?

A. You know, I didn鈥檛 start trying to find out whether bilingualism was bad or good. I did my doctorate in psychology: on how children acquire language. When I finished graduate school, in 1976, there was a job shortage in Canada for PhDs. The only position I found was with a research project studying second language acquisition in school children. It wasn鈥檛 my area. But it was close enough.

As a psychologist, I brought neuroscience questions to the study, like 鈥淗ow does the acquisition of a second language change thought?鈥� It was these types of questions that naturally led to the bilingualism research. The way research works is, it takes you down a road. You then follow that road.

Q. So what exactly did you find on this unexpected road?

A. As we did our research, you could see there was a big difference in the way monolingual and bilingual children processed language. We found that if you gave 5- and 6-year-olds language problems to solve, monolingual and bilingual children knew, pretty much, the same amount of language.

But on one question, there was a difference. We asked all the children if a certain illogical sentence was grammatically correct: 鈥淎pples grow on noses.鈥� The monolingual children couldn鈥檛 answer. They鈥檇 say, 鈥淭hat鈥檚 silly鈥� and they鈥檇 stall. But the bilingual children would say, in their own words, 鈥淚t鈥檚 silly, but it鈥檚 grammatically correct.鈥� The bilinguals, we found, manifested a cognitive system with the ability to attend to important information and ignore the less important.

Q. How does this work听鈥� do you understand it?

A. Yes. There鈥檚 a system in your brain, the executive control system. It鈥檚 a general manager. Its job is to keep you focused on what is relevant, while ignoring distractions. It鈥檚 what makes it possible for you to hold two different things in your mind at one time and switch between them.

If you have two languages and you use them regularly, the way the brain鈥檚 networks work is that every time you speak, both languages pop up and the executive control system has to sort through everything and attend to what鈥檚 relevant in the moment. Therefore the bilinguals use that system more, and it鈥檚 that regular use that makes that system more efficient.

Q. One of your most startling recent findings is that bilingualism helps forestall the symptoms of Alzheimer鈥檚 disease. How did you come to learn this?

A. We did two kinds of studies. In the first, published in 2004, we found that normally aging bilinguals had better cognitive functioning than normally aging monolinguals. Bilingual older adults performed better than monolingual older adults on executive control tasks. That was very impressive because it didn鈥檛 have to be that way. It could have turned out that everybody just lost function equally as they got older.

That evidence made us look at people who didn鈥檛 have normal cognitive function. In our next studies, we looked at the medical records of 400 Alzheimer鈥檚 patients. On average, the bilinguals showed Alzheimer鈥檚 symptoms five or six years later than those who spoke only one language. This didn鈥檛 mean that the bilinguals didn鈥檛 have Alzheimer鈥檚. It meant that as the disease took root in their brains, they were able to continue functioning at a higher level. They could cope with the disease for longer.

Q. So high school French is useful for something other than ordering a special meal in a restaurant?

A. Sorry, no. You have to use both languages all the time. You won鈥檛 get the bilingual benefit from occasional use.

Q. One would think bilingualism might help with multitasking 鈥� does it?

A. Yes, multitasking is one of the things the executive control system handles. We wondered, 鈥淎re bilinguals better at multitasking?鈥� So we put monolinguals and bilinguals into a driving simulator. Through headphones, we gave them extra tasks to do 鈥� as if they were driving and talking on cellphones. We then measured how much worse their driving got. Now, everybody鈥檚 driving got worse. But the bilinguals, their driving didn鈥檛 drop as much. Because adding on another task while trying to concentrate on a driving problem, that鈥檚 what bilingualism gives you 鈥� though I wouldn鈥檛 advise doing this.

Q. Has the development of new neuroimaging technologies changed your work?

A. Tremendously. It used to be that we could only see what parts of the brain lit up when our subjects performed different tasks. Now, with the new technologies, we can see how all the brain structures work in accord with each other.

In terms of monolinguals and bilinguals, the big thing that we have found is that the connections are different. So we have monolinguals solving a problem, and they use X systems, but when bilinguals solve the same problem, they use others. One of the things we鈥檝e seen is that on certain kinds of even nonverbal tests, bilingual people are faster. Why? Well, when we look in their brains through neuroimaging, it appears like they鈥檙e using a different kind of a network that might include language centres to solve a completely nonverbal problem. Their whole brain appears to rewire because of bilingualism.

Q. Bilingualism used to be considered a negative thing 鈥� at least in the United States. Is it still?

A. Until about the 1960s, the conventional wisdom was that bilingualism was a disadvantage. Some of this was xenophobia. Thanks to science, we now know that the opposite is true.

Q. Many immigrants choose not to teach their children their native language. Is this a good thing?

A. I鈥檓 asked about this all the time. People e-mail me and say, 鈥淚鈥檓 getting married to someone from another culture, what should we do with the children?鈥� I always say, 鈥淵ou鈥檙e sitting on a potential gift.鈥�

There are two major reasons people should pass their heritage language onto children. First, it connects children to their ancestors. The second is my research: Bilingualism is good for you. It makes brains stronger. It is brain exercise.

Q. Are you bilingual?

A. Well, I have fully bilingual grandchildren because my daughter married a Frenchman. When my daughter announced her engagement to her French boyfriend, we were a little surprised. It鈥檚 always astonishing when your child announces she鈥檚 getting married. She said, 鈥淏ut Mom, it鈥檒l be fine, our children will be bilingual!鈥�

Bialystok also holds an appointment at in Toronto. Her interview was featured on the front page of The New 91亚色 Times and was the site's most emailed story on May 31, 2011.

Posted by Elizabeth Monier-Williams, research communications officer, with files courtesy of YFile鈥� 91亚色鈥檚 daily e-bulletin.

The post Professor Ellen Bialystok speaks to the New 91亚色 Times about the bilingual advantage appeared first on Research & Innovation.