Numbers and letters: the complex functions of the brain

-The second day of the 17TH Congress of the European society for cognitive psychology, celebrated in San Sebastián, will focus today, Friday, in the research on bilingualism, the ability to learn new languages or our ability to remember numbers.

– involving top international scientistsexperts in psycholinguistics – as Manuel Carreiras, Itziar Laka, Nuria Sebastián, or Randi Martin – and mathematical processing, such as Denes Szucs.

Donostia, 2011-September why children are easier to learn new languages? being bilingual facilitates proficiency in more languages? Learn how a new spelling? Why mathematics is them choke to some people? Questions such as these will be part of the Agora in the second day of the 17TH Congress of the society European of the cognitive psychology, ESCoP 2011, which continues today, Friday, their activities in the Palacio Kursaal of Donostia.

The complexity of the language will be one of the main themes of this day care. This area will be dedicated three symposia, three oral sessions and 41 presentations of poster, with particular emphasis on aspects such as multilingualism (with greater focus if possible given that the Congress is held in a bilingual territory), the visual recognition of words or the interiorisation of new grammars.

Manuel Carreiras, an authority in matter and director of the Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language (BCBL), the organizing body of the Congress, participate directly in the debate. In addition, Congress counts on the participation of Itziar Laka, of the University of the Basque country, and Nuria Sebastián, Universidad Pompeu Fabra, two scientific international reference in the field of bilingualism.

The various presentations related to this subject include, for example, an exhibition about the differences between monolingual and bilingual in the brain process of grammatical and semantic understanding, or an explanation of the advantage of the bilingual in cognitive control. Precisely, bilingualism is one of the main lines of research of the BCBL, which focuses, inter alia, on the cognitive consequences of multilingualism.

In addition, one of the Summit of the day will arrive with Randi Martin, of the Rice Universersidad of us intervention. Martin taught a master class entitled memory work and language processing: an updated view of multicomponent ”, that will focus on how the understanding of the language depends on the ability to maintain and manipulate information in working memory.

But it will not only speak of language. Researcher Denes Szucs, a cognitive neuroscientist focusing on research of the representation of mathematics in the brain and the detection and resolution of conflicts, will participate in a morning Symposium on processing of numbers. It is also an expert in some dysfunctions related to mathematics, such as dyscalculia, a disability which limits the skills in this area. Elena Salillas, the BCBL, also explain the implementation underway for his studies on dyscalculia in relation to bilingualism, which will begin in a few weeks in Donostia.

During the day, in addition to the above issues, will be human learning, consciousness, memory, emotions, attention, and facial recognition, highlighting the involvement of the brain and the human mind in these cognitive skills.

1000 scientists and 700 presentations

In this way will continue the ESCoP 2011 Congress, with the sponsorship of the Basque Government, the provincial Council of Gipuzkoa, the Ministry of science and innovation and the Spanish society of Experimental Psychology (SEPEX) and the European society for cognitive psychology (ESCoP). The event brings together these days in the Guipuzcoan capital almost a thousand scientists and personalities investigated around the brain. The study of this body key to get to know the human being is made from many different disciplines, so at the Kursaal will meet psychologists, pedagogues, linguists, physicists, mathematicians, computer, physicians or biologists. Very different professional profiles with a common goal: understanding the human brain.

The Congress, which will be witness to the Sunday in 700 scientific presentations, boasts the most outstanding personalities from the world of cognitive psychology, with the participation of, among others, Robert Zatorre of the McGill University of Canada; Dana Small, Yale University, USA; Cathy Price, of the University Colllege of London; Randi Martin, of the Rice University (USA); Antonino Vallesi, of the International School for Advanced Studies (Italy); Itziar Laka, the University of the Basque country; Nuria Sebastián, President of the ESCoP from Universitat Pompeu Fabra or Manuel Carreiras, director of the BCBL.