The study: Led by Sian Beilock, an associate professor of psychology, the team recruited 12 professional and intercollegiate hockey players, eight fans and nine individuals who had never watched the game to listen to sentences about hockey, such as shooting, making saves and being engaged in the game. They also listened to sentences about everyday activities, such as ringing doorbells and pushing brooms across the floor. While the subjects listened to the sentences, their brains were scanned using functioning Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI), which allows researchers to infer the areas of the brain most active during language listening. After hearing the sentences in the fMRI scanner, subjects performed a battery of tests designed to gauge their comprehension of those sentences. Although most subjects understood the language about everyday activities, hockey players and fans were substantially better than novices at understanding hockey-related language.
The results: Brain imaging revealed that when hockey players and fans listen to language about hockey, they show activity in the brain regions usually used to plan and select well-learned physical actions. The increased activity in motor areas of the brain helps hockey players and fans to better understand hockey language. The results show that playing sports--or even just watching--builds a stronger understanding of language. "Experience playing and watching sports has enduring effects on language understanding by changing the neural networks that support comprehension to incorporate areas active in performing sports skills," Beilock explained.
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The takeaway: The brain may be more flexible in adulthood than previously thought. "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," said Beilock. In other words, athletes and sports fans' understanding of language related to that activity is improved, which has greater implications for learning. The study findings were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
