Learning foreign language with visual and motor enrichment - Learning outcomes and neurobiological mechanisms
Final Report Abstract
The presence of information from multiple sensory modalities during learning, known as learning “enrichment”, benefits learning outcomes in many domains, including voice identity recognition, music training, and foreign language instruction. For example, the learning of auditory foreign language vocabulary paired with one’s own body movements or with pictures enhances memory for that vocabulary compared to auditory-only learning. Mechanisms underlying the benefits of learning enrichment are currently unknown. Our primary goal was to discover key behavioural and neuroscientific principles underlying learning enrichment in the domain of foreign language vocabulary learning. Our hypotheses and experimental approach were driven by the multisensory learning theory, which attributes enrichment benefits to the reactivation of brain areas that process the enrichment during learning, e.g., enrichment with self-performed gestures leads to reactivation of biological movement visual areas and motor cortices. To test the hypotheses derived from the multisensory learning theory we used a multi-methodological neuroscience approach to investigate (i) whether brain regions that are active during learning become reactivated during subsequent vocabulary translation, (ii) the causal relevance of responses in the reactivated areas for learning outcomes, (iii) the time course of this reactivation. Besides the neuroscientific questions, we evaluated whether learning enrichment is also beneficial for vocabulary learning in school settings in different age groups.
Publications
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Visual and Motor Cortices Differentially Support the Translation of Foreign Language Words. Current Biology, 25(4), 530-535.
Mayer, Katja M.; Yildiz, Izzet B.; Macedonia, Manuela & von, Kriegstein Katharina
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Recently learned foreign abstract and concrete nouns are represented in distinct cortical networks similar to the native language. Human Brain Mapping, 38(9), 4398-4412.
Mayer, Katja M.; Macedonia, Manuela & von, Kriegstein Katharina
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How Can We Learn Foreign Language Vocabulary More Easily?. Frontiers for Young Minds, 8.
Mathias, Brian; Andrä, Christian; Mayer, Katja M.; Sureth, Leona; Klingebiel, Andrea; Hartwigsen, Gesa; Macedonia, Manuela & von, Kriegstein Katharina
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Learning Foreign Language Vocabulary with Gestures and Pictures Enhances Vocabulary Memory for Several Months Post-Learning in Eight-Year-Old School Children. Educational Psychology Review, 32(3), 815-850.
Andrä, Christian; Mathias, Brian; Schwager, Anika; Macedonia, Manuela & von, Kriegstein Katharina
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Visual Sensory Cortices Causally Contribute to Auditory Word Recognition Following Sensorimotor-Enriched Vocabulary Training. Cerebral Cortex, 31(1), 513-528.
Mathias, Brian; Sureth, Leona; Hartwigsen, Gesa; Macedonia, Manuela; Mayer, Katja M. & von, Kriegstein Katharina
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Motor Cortex Causally Contributes to Vocabulary Translation following Sensorimotor-Enriched Training. The Journal of Neuroscience, 41(41), 8618-8631.
Mathias, Brian; Waibel, Andrea; Hartwigsen, Gesa; Sureth, Leona; Macedonia, Manuela; Mayer, Katja M. & von, Kriegstein Katharina
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Twelve- and Fourteen-Year-Old School Children Differentially Benefit from Sensorimotor- and Multisensory-Enriched Vocabulary Training. Educational Psychology Review, 34(3), 1739-1770.
Mathias, Brian; Andrä, Christian; Schwager, Anika; Macedonia, Manuela & von, Kriegstein Katharina
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Enriched learning: behavior, brain, and computation. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 27(1), 81-97.
Mathias, Brian & von, Kriegstein Katharina
