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This article is about how a team of researchers has discovered the distinct computations that occur when we switch between different languages.

This source discusses how babies have such ease at learning two languages simultaneously. Intersting findings: - Babies begin learning language in the womb. They are more comfortable with the language(s) the mother spoke while she was pregnant. - Code switching is actually normal and not a negative aspect of being bilingual. It just shows the ease at which one can switch from one task to the next.

This article talked about how language has an influence on how we perceive time. Researchers first found this to be true in bilinguals, as they are capable of code-switching. After, researchers were able to identify that each language perceives time in different durations. Also, bilingual speakers, when switching between languages, use the specific time duration measure of that language.

Some languages, like Swedish and English, describe time as length. Other languages, like Spanish and Greek, describe time as size. These differences in language lead to differences in how people perceive time. Spanish-Swedish bilinguals' perception of time changes depending on the language they are thinking in.

In this TED-Talk, Dr. Naja Ferjan Ramirez, linguistics professor at the University of Washington and a specialist in the brain processes of children 0-3 years, lays out the benefits of bilingualism, tells how to optimize language learning to achieve better acquisition, and dispels some common concerns about the cons of creating a bilingual child. No surprises here: start early, and create conditions where babies are exposed to the desired target languages-this will enable babies to process the sounds of dual languages, not just one. Ideally, babies will have frequent, social interactions with fully-competent, fluent speakers of the target languages. Ramirez also mentions a major cognitive benefit to bilingualism: a strengthened prefrontal cortex: the area of the brain that deals with task-switching and flexible thinking.

This article explains Trinidad Creole English, or TCE, from the perspective of a native TCE speaker. Karel Mc Intosh demonstrates her passion for TCE along with the challenges that come with it. TCE speakers love their "broken English." It is a part of their culture and identity. Although it is a comfortable way of conversing with each other, TCE speakers are looked down upon by those who do not understand it and are not used to it. This causes many TCE speakers to code switch, which means speaking with an accent in relaxed settings and speaking proper English in more formal settings. Intosh describes her experiences as a TCE speaker and states her opinion on the negative perception that follows it.

Read this full article: "seems" is the operative word, as linguists are NOT in agreement that language definitively shapes how we see the world. If you want to learn another language and become fluent, you may have to change the way you behave in small but sometimes significant ways, specifically how you sort things into categories and what you notice. Researchers are starting to study how those changes happen, says Aneta Pavlenko, a professor of linguistics at Temple University. If people speaking different languages need to group or observe things differently, then bilinguals ought to switch focus depending on the language they use. That's exactly the case, according to Pavlenko. For example, she says English distinguishes between cups and glasses, but in Russian, the difference between chashka (cup) and stakan (glass) is based on shape, not material. One's native language could also affect memory, says Pavlenko. She points to novelist Vladimir Nabokov, who was fully trilingual in English, French and Russian. When Nabokov started translating his first memoir, written in English, into Russian, he recalled a lot of things that he did not remember when writing it in English. Pavlenko states that "the version of Nabokov's autobiography we know now is actually a third attempt, where he had to recall more things in Russian and then re-translate them from Russian back into English." Lena Boroditsky, an associate professor of cognitive science at the University of California, San Diego, has studied the differences in what research subjects remember when using English, which doesn't always note the intent of an action, and Spanish, which does. This can lead to differences in what people remember seeing, which is potentially important in eyewitness testimony, she says. However, not all linguists agree that language affects what we notice. John McWhorter,, a linguist at Columbia University, acknowledges such differences but says they don't really matter. The experim

"Experienced meditators seem to be able switch off areas of the brain associated with daydreaming as well as psychiatric disorders such as autism and schizophrenia ... Less day dreaming has been associated with increased happiness levels ... experienced meditators had decreased activity in areas of the brain called the default mode network, which has been implicated in lapses of attention and disorders such as anxiety, attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder, and even the buildup of beta amyloid plaques in Alzheimer's disease."

University of Michigan professor Carmel O'Shannessy has discovered a language born just a few decades ago. "Light Warlpiri" is spoken in the aboriginal community of Lajamanu in the Northern Territory of Australia.

This article examines Nadine Gaab's 2014 study which established a connection - in both children and adults - between learning to play an instrument and improved executive functioning, like problem-solving, switching between tasks and focus. The article also cites the research of neuropsychologist Ani Patel, who advances the OPERA theory of music's benefits for learning. Patel notes "music is not an island in the brain cut off from other things, that there's overlap, that's the 'O' of OPERA, between the networks that process music and the networks that are involved in other day-to-day cognitive functions such as language, memory, attention and so forth," he says. "The 'P' in OPERA is precision. Think about how sensitive we are to the tuning of an instrument, whether the pitch is in key or not, and it can be painful if it's just slightly out of tune." That level of precision in processing music, Patel says, is much higher than the level of precision used in processing speech. This means, he says, that developing our brains' musical networks may very well enhance our ability to process speech. "And the last three components of OPERA, the 'E-R-A,' are emotion, repetition and attention," he says. "These are factors that are known to promote what's called brain plasticity, the changing of the brain's structure as a function of experience."

Author Sheila Heen, along with Douglas Stone, recently wrote a book called Thanks for the Feedback: The Science and Art of Receiving Feedback Well. One of their chapters focuses on a phenomenon called "switchtracking": when "someone gives you feedback, and your reaction to that feedback changes the subject." Heen notes switchtracking is a pattern in feedback conversations "so common that it's instantly recognizable." "The first person stays on their own track. The second person actually smoothly switches to a different topic, which is their own reaction to the feedback, and often the feedback that they have themselves for the first person," Heen says. "They just get further and further apart ... And they don't even realize that they're going in different directions." Four pieces of take-away advice for effective feedback: 1. Try A Post-it We're always trying to get people to pay attention, but there's some research showing that we have a powerful (and affordable) weapon at our disposal: the Post-it note. 2. Assume Positive Intent Assume positive intent when receiving feedback: concentrate on the substance of the feedback, rather than questioning the giver's intentions! 3. To Get Someone's Attention ... Try Whispering In Their Right Ear. People are more likely to comply with a request when it was whispered in their right ear. 4. When Giving Feedback, Flatter First If you can boost a person's self-esteem before giving them constructive criticism, they might be more receptive to it.

This review considers speaking in a second language from the perspective of motor-sensory control. Previous studies relating brain function to the prior acquisition of two or more languages (neurobilingualism) have investigated the differential demands made on linguistic representations and processes, and the role of domain-general cognitive control systems when speakers switch between languages.

Studies show that bilinguals are "smarter" than monolinguals as it improves cognitive skills. Because bilinguals have to switch languages often, it requires one to monitor the environment which constantly keeps the brain active. 

Don't believe the multitasking hype, scientists say. New research shows that we humans aren't as good as we think we are at doing several things at once - but it also found a skill that gives us an evolutionary edge. Researchers say humans are merely very good at switching their attention from task to task.

How exactly does the technology we use to read change the way we read? How reading on screens differs from reading on paper is relevant not just to the youngest among us, but to just about everyone who reads-to anyone who routinely switches between working long hours in front of a computer at the office and leisurely reading paper magazines and books at home; to people who have embraced e-readers for their convenience and portability, but admit that for some reason they still prefer reading on paper; and to those who have already vowed to forgo tree pulp entirely. As digital texts and technologies become more prevalent, we gain new and more mobile ways of reading-but are we still reading as attentively and thoroughly? How do our brains respond differently to onscreen text than to words on paper? Should we be worried about dividing our attention between pixels and ink or is the validity of such concerns paper-thin?

When people listen to a preferred or a favorite song, they are able to connect better to the part of the brain called the default mode network, which is tied to how humans are able to switch between thinking about what's going on around them and their self-referential thoughts.

To speak or write Black English with any level of fluency requires diligence and, more often than not, a familiarity that is both embodied and acculturated. The language ebbs and flows temporally, but also along lines of class, region, and even national origin (after all, Americans are not the only people-black or otherwise-to speak English). Black English is, like standard American English, a language worthy of both speech and study. It is distinct and recognizable, a code of speech that can function as much as a signal of authenticity or belonging as it does a way to relay words.