Trying harder makes it more difficult to learn some aspects of language

J Thoendell stashed this in Science

Source: http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2014/trying-ha...

In a new study, a team of neuroscientists and psychologists led by Amy Finn, a postdoc at MIT’s McGovern Institute for Brain Research, has found evidence for another factor that contributes to adults’ language difficulties: When learning certain elements of language, adults’ more highly developed cognitive skills actually get in the way. The researchers discovered that the harder adults tried to learn an artificial language, the worse they were at deciphering the language’s morphology — the structure and deployment of linguistic units such as root words, suffixes, and prefixes.

“We found that effort helps you in most situations, for things like figuring out what the units of language that you need to know are, and basic ordering of elements. But when trying to learn morphology, at least in this artificial language we created, it’s actually worse when you try,” Finn says.

<a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2014/trying-harder-makes-it-more-difficult-to-learn-some-aspects-of-language-0721"><img src="http://newsoffice.mit.edu/sites/mit.edu.newsoffice/files/styles/news_article_image_top_slideshow/public/images/2014/MITnews_LearningLanguage_0.jpg?itok=do-UB8dr" alt="Try try again Study says no MIT News Office" /></a>
 
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 <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2014/trying-harder-makes-it-more-difficult-to-learn-some-aspects-of-language-0721">http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2014/trying-ha...</a>

In a new study, a team of neuroscientists and psychologists led by Amy Finn, a postdoc at MIT’s McGovern Institute for Brain Research, has found evidence for another factor that contributes to adults’ language difficulties: When learning certain elements of language, adults’ more highly developed cognitive skills actually get in the way. The researchers discovered that the harder adults tried to learn an artificial language, the worse they were at deciphering the language’s morphology — the structure and deployment of linguistic units such as root words, suffixes, and prefixes.

“We found that effort helps you in most situations, for things like figuring out what the units of language that you need to know are, and basic ordering of elements. But when trying to learn morphology, at least in this artificial language we created, it’s actually worse when you try,” Finn says.