Turns out, a sunny disposition and penchant for grammar may go hand in hand.<\/p>\n
Brock neuroscientist Veena Dwivedi, who takes up the role of Director of the University\u2019s Centre for Neuroscience on Monday, July 1, has been exploring how a positive outlook on life can help people to improve their language skills.<\/p>\n
The Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience researches the impact of emotions on the brain\u2019s ability to process language, an area with implications for both youth and older adults.<\/p>\n
Emotional states unlock language ability, she says, referring to a project she incorporated in her Neuropsychology course<\/a> in which students used music to spark conversation with elderly residents in the Extended Care Unit of a local hospital.<\/p>\n Emotional responses evoked by music have enabled some older adults living with neurological impairments to start speaking and sharing their memories again following long periods of silence, as shown in the documentary Alive Inside<\/em><\/a>, <\/em>Dwivedi says.<\/p>\n In one of her earlier studies<\/a>, she and her team explored the connection between someone\u2019s frame of mind and their capacity to spot grammatical errors.<\/p>\n Dwivedi used a standardized measurement in the field of psychology \u2014 the Positive Affect Negative Affect Scale (PANAS)<\/a> \u2014 to determine the emotional temperament of university-aged research participants.<\/p>\n During the study, Dwivedi\u2019s team measured the brainwave patterns of participants while they read emotionally neutral sentences containing grammatical errors. Participants who rated positive on the PANAS scale had a significantly greater difference between brainwaves than those who rated negative on the scale.<\/p>\n Dwivedi aims to do future research on the exact brain mechanisms that makes this the case but says the difference could indicate someone\u2019s eagerness to figure out the proper meaning because they care about doing so.<\/p>\n She says the study result that one\u2019s emotional inner state affects brain response to neutral sentences was \u201cmind blowing\u201d for her.<\/p>\n \u201cIf the sentence has emotional content, you might think that if your mood matches the mood of the sentence, OK, emotions will play a role,\u201d says Dwivedi, adding that she wasn\u2019t expecting the same result with neutral sentences.<\/p>\n