02.11.2023

Join us for the talk by prof. Christos Pliatsikas at November 28th (Tuesday) 9am in room 2.15

Abstract:

Cognitively demanding experiences have been shown to cause neuroplastic effects to the brain. Bilingualism, with the additional processing and controlling demands it imposes, can be safely considered such an experience. Notably, the direction and intensity of these effects appear to depend on the quality and quantity of the bilingual experience. In this talk, I will firstly review the available evidence on structural effects from the perspective of experience-based neuroplasticity, showcase how they mirror neuroplastic patterns reported in other (non-linguistic) domains of learning, and demonstrate how they have contributed to a new a theoretical suggestion, the Dynamic Restructuring Model. This will be followed up by some newer evidence from my lab which corroborates this model. The second part of the talk will provide an overview of evidence on the effects of bilingualism on brain function at rest, including some newer evidence from an ongoing project which uses resting-state EEG.

Christos Pliatsikas is an Associate Professor in Psycholinguistics in Bi-/Multilinguals at the School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences, University of Reading, UK. His work focuses on experience-based neuroplasticity, with a primary interest on the effects of bi-/multilingualism on brain structure and function, including in brain development and ageing. He is on the Editorial Board of Bilingualism, Language and Cognition, Languages and Frontiers in Language Sciences, section Bilingualism.