Interesting stories about the ability of the human brain (Part 1)

A Lebanese citizen can speak, read, and write 59 languages ​​in the world and only take a week to master a new language. When learning a foreign language, he spends 30 minutes every day listening, 30 minutes learning grammar and 15 minutes recording sounds.

Not only the special case mentioned above but even a normal person's brain has many interesting things. Adult brains have about 100 billion neurons connected to each other through about 5,000 joints. Each brain second can create and cut one million connections. It can store information for more than a century (if you can live that year), automatically categorize, replace and edit data as needed.

The brain can replicate our surroundings thanks to sensitive cells capable of sensing vibration, electromagnetic radiation, chemicals, and pressure. Those cells are able to determine the top priority information in just a fraction of a second. The brain coordinates the activity of at least 640 muscles and monitors energy production, reproduction and many other processes. However, some brains are more special than many other brains.

I.Q

Intelligence is a rather abstract concept and it is not surprising that it is always a controversial topic. Many studies confirm intelligence is related to the size, mass, and volume of the brain. Sandra Witelson, a neurologist at McMaster University (Canada), investigated the brains of the 100 deceased who successfully completed intelligent IQ (IQ) tests while alive. She found some positive connections between IQ and brain volume, but they vary by gender, dominant hand and type of test.

For example, the level of language intelligence has a positive relationship with brain volume in right-handed men, but that is not true in left-handed men. In women, spatial intelligence (the ability to mimic physical movements, geometry geometry) is closely related to brain volume, but that relationship is not as strong as language intelligence.

Of course brain size is not the most important thing. Women's brains are much smaller than men even when taking into account the relationship between the brain and body size, but there is no big difference between men and women. In fact, the Guinness Book of World Records once recorded a woman named Marilyn vos Savant who had the highest IQ in the world during 1986-1989. Since then, the list of people with high IQ is not updated anymore. In addition, the IQ index that Marilyn vos Savant achieved is also unstable. It ranges from 186 to 228, depending on the type of test, ambient conditions and the date of the test.

If size cannot explain intelligence, can brain activity provide clues? In 2000, a group of Cambridge University neurologists found something called the "G-point" of the brain. It is an area that is linked to synthetic intelligence - the object that IQ tests aim for.

After using layered positron capture techniques, the team found that the puzzles and problems that people use to measure synthetic intelligence (or G points) seem to affect only the cortical region of the forehead. Do not activate the whole brain. This finding suggests that there are more important things than brain size.

Intelligence can also be related to working memory. Sometimes we can practice to improve memory and that is good for intelligence, especially the ability to solve new problems. However, that measure can only be a shortcut for us to achieve a higher score when doing IQ tests, but not for the scientific community to better understand the brain structure.

Last year, Philip Shaw, an expert working at the US National Institutes of Neurological Health, found a IQ-related difference in the child's development. He and his colleagues conducted experiments with more than 300 children aged 7 to 18. The research team divided the children into 3 groups by IQ: average (below 108), high (109-120) and exported. identity (above 120).

When children reached the age of 18, scientists did not notice any difference in cortical thickness. However, children in the average IQ group reached the maximum thickness at age 8, then the thickness decreased as they grew. Compared to the average group, the cortex of excellent children was thinner at age 7 but the thickness continued to increase until 11 or 12 years of age and then decreased. The cerebral cortex of children with high IQ is similar to the excellent cortex of the group, but they reach maximum thickness during the period from 8 to 11 years old.

Ability to learn a foreign language

Ziad Fazah, a Lebanese mentioned above, has the ability to speak, read and write 59 languages ​​in 10 languages ​​he uses as his mother tongue. You only need a week to master a new language. Ziad's father was born in Colombia and Ziad himself was born in Liberia, west Africa. He arrived in Lebanon as a child and grew up near a port where he had the opportunity to meet sailors from many countries.

Ziad started learning French and English at school. At 11 years old, he cherished the dream of speaking all languages ​​on the planet. For the next three years, although he never left Lebanon, he studied more than 50 languages. Sometimes Ziad learns several languages ​​at the same time, but in English only takes 3 months to master. This young man dreamed of working for the United Nations and was invited by many intelligence agencies, but now he decided to pursue a quiet life with the language teacher profession in Brazil.

What secrets are the inner geniuses of the brain? Ziad showed nothing special even though he said his memory was "like a camera" and he also spent a lot of time studying. Ziad believes that people can speak at least one foreign language if they spend 30 minutes a day listening to the sounds of someone who speaks that language, another 30 minutes to learn grammar and 15 minutes to record sounds. .

Ziad has never participated in any research related to his talents. However, after learning many other linguistic geniuses, scientists claim that finding the factors that make people able to learn languages ​​extremely fast is not easy. The only argument approved by many scientists is: The more exposed the language is, the easier it is to absorb it.

If we can't create memories of special sounds right in the first year of life, our ability to recognize them will disappear and learning becomes more difficult. Exposure to grammar of foreign languages ​​before the age of 7 will help you absorb them better in the later stages of life. However, the level of memorization of vocabulary is entirely dependent on our memory.

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