cognition – languagesciencey

Stress in the L2

TYG — Sun, 14 Jun 2026 13:45:43 +0000

Speaking another language is both wonderful and stressful. The joy of opening new channels of communication and sharing ideas with different people is undeniable, but so is the stress of errors and fatigue grazing the language learning journey. Sometimes speakers experience anxiety as well, further complicating performance. One of the most commonly studied second language (L2) affects is language anxiety, which describes negativity and fear related to using a non-native language (MacIntyre & Gregersen, 2012). Sometimes referred to as foreign language or L2 anxiety, this phenomenon is also found in L2 classrooms where teachers observe emotional blocks to language learning (Papi & Khajavy, 2023). Anecdotally, I can appreciate its relevance since speaking another language, especially as supposedly well-informed adults, forces a naivety and an unfamiliarity we’ve fought so long to forget.

Don’t sweat it… or do?

These dings of stress emerge in our sweat too, allowing researchers to examine our galvanic skin response as a proxy for physiological anxiety (Markiewicz et al., 2022). Using these skin responses, researchers have found that high response (or arousal) during an L2 conversation was related to L2 speakers’ negative perceptions of their own fluency and their partner’s engagement in the conversation (Lindberg et al., 2022).

The infamous stress hormone

Stress can also be measured through cortisol, a steroid hormone often used in research studies as a biomarker for psychological stress (Inder et al., 2012). Cortisol may be noninvasively assessed through saliva samples, making it an accessible method for research. Using this method, another group of researchers found that L2 speakers showed significantly larger increases in salivary cortisol compared to those speaking their first language (L1), despite not showing any differences in their heart rate nor their self-reported measures of stress or anxiety (Fischer et al., 2019).

Stressing the point

Stress may reduce our overall speech fluency in even our primary language (Buchanan et al., 2014) and L2 students’ anxiety may reduce their willingness to participate in class (Nyamekye et al., 2025). This may be due to stress depleting or redistributing cognitive resources (Shields et al., 2016), which may then stifle L2 performance. Yet, other research suggests that the depletion of cognitive resources may support language learning in adults (Smalle et al., 2021). This paradoxical finding may hint at the specific impacts of physiological, emotional stress separate from shifts in cognitive shares.

Perhaps, like with almost anything we do, it is the balance we find between stress and performance that serves us best, teetering away from edges and excess.

References

Buchanan, T. W., Laures-Gore, J. S., & Duff, M. C. (2014). Acute stress reduces speech fluency. Biological psychology, 97, 60–66. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsycho.2014.02.005

Fischer, S., Spoerri, C. M., Gmuer, A., Wingeier, M., Nater, U. M., Gaab, J., … Ditzen, B. (2019). Psychobiological impact of speaking a second language in healthy young men. Stress, 22(3), 403–407. https://doi.org/10.1080/10253890.2019.1575805

Inder, W. J., Dimeski, G., & Russell, A. (2012). Measurement of salivary cortisol in 2012 – laboratory techniques and clinical indications. Clinical endocrinology, 77(5), 645–651. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2265.2012.04508.x

Lindberg, R., McDonough, K., & Trofimovich, P. (2023). Second language anxiety in conversation and its relationship with speakers’ perceptions of the interaction and their social networks. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 45(5), 1413–1426. doi:10.1017/S0272263122000523

MacIntyre, P., Gregersen, T. (2012). Affect: The Role of Language Anxiety and Other Emotions in Language Learning. In: Mercer, S., Ryan, S., Williams, M. (eds) Psychology for Language Learning. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137032829_8

Markiewicz, R., Markiewicz-Gospodarek, A., & Dobrowolska, B. (2022). Galvanic Skin Response Features in Psychiatry and Mental Disorders: A Narrative Review. International journal of environmental research and public health, 19(20), 13428. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph192013428

Nyamekye, E., Mutawakil, AR. & Slippe, D.P. The predictive impact of linguistic anxiety and ‘fear of lecturers’ on students’ willingness to communicate in class. Discov Psychol 5, 88 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1007/s44202-025-00348-1

Papi M, Khajavy H. Second language anxiety: Construct, effects, and sources. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics. 2023;43:127-139. doi:10.1017/S0267190523000028

Shields, G. S., Sazma, M. A., & Yonelinas, A. P. (2016). The effects of acute stress on core executive functions: A meta-analysis and comparison with cortisol. Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews, 68, 651–668. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2016.06.038

Smalle, E. H. M., Muylle, M., Duyck, W., & Szmalec, A. (2021). Less is more: Depleting cognitive resources enhances language learning abilities in adults. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 150(12), 2423–2434. https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0001058

For more info on the stress/arousal curve:
https://dictionary.apa.org/yerkes-dodson-law

Multilingualism’s benefits may hinge upon one’s language diversity and education

TYG — Thu, 22 Jan 2026 23:01:53 +0000

By now, we’ve heard much about multilingualism’s mass appeal for both mind and market value alike (apologies for sounding too gauche, but isn’t that what the curriculum vitae is all about?). It’s no surprise to see that speaking more than one language may have significant benefits on our cognition as we age (Amoruso et al., 2025; Bialystok, 2021). The types of languages themselves, however, may also have an impact on our cognition.

A study of language and cognition in older adults using a national survey

Petrosyan et al. (2025) studied this impact with a sample of 4088 older Indian adults ages 60 or over, which included around half without formal schooling (54%). This sample was procured from the Longitudinal Aging Study in India – Diagnostic Assessment of Dementia, which is a subset of a national survey representing 40 different languages and dialects. Two main findings from this study were:

Multilingualism was associated with better cognitive function across all studied domains among those with education; the relatedness between languages was not a factor here
Among those without education, however, multilingual adults who spoke related languages had better executive function compared to monolinguals

In this study, we see that language diversity and education may both affect cognitive functioning among older adults. What does this mean for multilingual benefits? It may mean relatedness of languages spoken by the multilingual speaker may affect how the brain organizes, retrieves, and processes information. Through the study’s analysis, teasing apart the differences between those with and without education revealed a sort of cost-benefit model of speaking related vs unrelated languages; based on their finding, speaking unrelated languages did not confer better executive function for those in the non-education group. The authors point out that those in the non-education group may have reduced resource access and may use related languages more often than unrelated ones since related languages are present in similar geographical areas (Petrosyan et al., 2025). From this we can see that:

Education levels may also indicate resource availability (Petrosyan et al., 2025), not only skill/knowledge acquisition levels
Related languages may be found in related geographical areas (i.e., languages spoken become more different as geographic distances increase; Huisman et al., 2019)
More use of languages (as may have been the case in related languages) may confer clearer cognitive benefits than less-used languages

So, is multilingualism helpful or… ?

This brings us to question of what multilingualism is. Is multilingualism defined simply by the languages known or also by its language diversity, or even its proficiency? Defining multilingualism does not appear consistent among multilingual studies, making it prudent to parse out its variations to understand its truer effects on our thinking. Multilingualism may indeed keep our cognitive control with age, but its caress may come with caveats.

References

Amoruso, L., Hernandez, H., Santamaria-Garcia, H., Moguilner, S., Legaz, A., Prado, P., Cuadros, J., Gonzalez, L., Gonzalez-Gomez, R., Migeot, J., Coronel-Oliveros, C., Cruzat, J., Carreiras, M., Medel, V., Maito, M. A., Duran-Aniotz, C., Tagliazucchi, E., Baez, S., García, A. M., & Ibanez, A. (2025). Multilingualism protects against accelerated aging in cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses of 27 European countries. Nature aging, 5(11), 2340–2354. https://doi.org/10.1038/s43587-025-01000-2

Bialystok, E. (2021). Cognitive Implications of Bilingualism. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190236557.013.763

Huisman, J. L. A., Majid, A., & van Hout, R. (2019). The geographical configuration of a language area influences linguistic diversity. PloS one, 14(6), e0217363. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0217363

Petrosyan, S., Strangmann, I. M., Nichols, E., Meijer, E., Briceño, E. M., Narayanan, S., Lee, J., & Arce Rentería, M. (2025). The association of multilingualism with diverse language families and cognition among adults with and without education in India. Neuropsychology, 39(3), 223–234. https://doi.org/10.1037/neu0000988

Aging in Multilingual

TYG — Wed, 24 Dec 2025 03:45:00 +0000

Multilingualism mystifies me with its modest magic. Being able to share a thought with another through language is already useful, and then to amplify this prowess along a different dimension is nothing short of beautiful. Many researchers have prodded the possibility of multilingual benefits and evidence continues to accrue in favour of these advantages.

One such area is in brain aging, where bilingualism or multilingualism has shown to confer some protection on our cognition. Cognition is what we call our process of learning, experiencing, and thinking (Bayne et al., 2019) and is an area language researchers explore to gauge the effects of languages on our thoughts, thinking, and memories. As with many things, cognition is subject to the less pleasant aspects of aging.

Yet, cognitive reserve, a feature of cognition, is one that may be bolstered by one’s use of languages. Cognitive reserve can be described as the buffer between an intangible thinking and a physical brain that can sustain some cognitive function, despite a crumbling of physical mass. Knowing more than one language, as is in the case of bilingualism, can support cognitive reserve into old age and improve performance compared to those who speak one language (Bialystok, 2021). Bilingualism in earlier life stages may even create a cognitive protective effect that endures into old age (Ballarini et al., 2023). This is concluded from results on tasks or activities and/or through brain structure itself.

How do we measure cognition?