Scientist to see if people think in different ways

For years, scientists have wondered whether the language we speak affects the way we think.

Now, a team of scientists from Beijing Normal University are asking for expat volunteers to help solve the question with the aid of brain-mapping technology.

The study will compare the brain activity of Chinese and expats using functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to measure the change in blood flow related to neural activity in the brain as they concentrate on identifying pictures of family relatives.

The study, titled Kinship Representation in the Brain: A Cross-cultural Study, will focus on the vast differences between terms used in the West to refer to family versus those used in China.

"In the Chinese language there are more than 30 different terms used to identify family members of three different generations," said Liu Chao, a research director at the State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning, Beijing Normal University.

"In the English language there are only 15 such words."

Pilot research has already shown a difference in the time it takes Chinese and foreigners to react to pictures and scenarios involving labeling family, Liu said.

He hopes that people will be willing to participate on the basis that they are helping science, but he is offering 100 yuan and a high resolution, 3D image of the volunteer's brain as enticements.

"We're offering people a really nice detailed image of their brain," he said.

Liu devised the program in the United States while writing his dissertation on how different languages affect the brain.

Foreign volunteers of the study must be native English speakers from the US or UK, 18-35 years old and right-handed.

The session, where participants will be asked to complete a questionnaire and spend 40 minutes having an MRI, takes one and a half hours to complete.

"If you have no metal in your body, an MRI is completely harmless. It's widely used in the medical industry," he said.

Time slots for volunteers include Sept 29, Sept 30 and Oct 8-25 any time from 9 am to 5 pm.

"I have no specific predictions of what we're going to see, but I think regardless of outcome the results will be fascinating," Liu said.

China Daily

(China Daily 09/28/2010)