Dr. Mado Proverbio and researchers at the Milano-Bicocca University in Milan have found differences in EEG amplitude levels when processing language learned to proficiency before the age of five when compared to “second language” processing [msnbc]:
For more than a year, a team of scientists experimented on 15 interpreters, revealing what they say were surprising differences in brain activity when the subjects were shown words in their native language and in other languages they spoke…. Proverbio attributed the differences to the fact the brain absorbs the mother tongue at a time when it is also storing early visual, acoustic, emotional and other nonlinguistic knowledge. This means that the native language triggers a series of associations within the brain that show up as increased electrical activity.
“Our mother tongue is the language we use to think, dream and feel emotion,” Proverbio said.
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