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(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- Come game time, sports fans are geared up to watch and cheer -- but new research shows fans and the players they're rooting for may be unknowingly sharpening their language skills.
A study at the University of Chicago shows when sports players and fans listen to conversations about their sport, parts of the brain usually associated with planning and controlling actions are activated. This is because parts of the brain usually involved in playing sports are used to understanding language specific to that sport, even when the listener has no intention to physically act.
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"We show that non-language related activities, such as playing or watching a sport, enhance one's ability to understand language about their sport precisely because brain areas normally used to act become highly involved in language understanding," Sian Beilock, associate professor of psychology at the University of Chicago and lead author, was quoted as saying.
Hockey players, fans and participants who had never watched a game listened to sentences about hockey players and their actions, as well as sentences about everyday activities like ringing doorbells. While they were listening, researchers scanned their brains with functioning Magnetic Resonance Imaging.
The brain images revealed listening to language about hockey activates brain regions usually used to plan and select well-learned physical actions.
SOURCE: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2008; published online September 2, 2008
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