The brain can unconsciously ‘decide’ to suppress negative information to minimize anxiety or mental discomfort, according to a new study.
Just as psychologists have previously discovered that people who are bilingual and subconsciously access their first language when they are reading in their second language, the latest findings suggest that the brain unconsciously shuts down the same access to a bilingual person’s native language when it encounters a negative word such as war, discomfort, inconvenience and unfortunate.
UK researcher who conducted the study, published Wednesday in the Journal of Neuroscience, believe that a specific unconscious brain reaction that blocks negative language inputs from reaching the part of the brain where primal reactions interact with higher mental processes by shutting down access to certain forms of knowledge.
Experts say that people exhibit greater reaction to emotional words and phrases in their first language, explaining why some bilingual parents choose to speak to their children in their native tongue despite being fluent in the language of the country where they reside.
Researchers also point out that anger, swearing or discussing intimate feelings has more power in a speaker’s native language, and emotional information processing is less powerful in the second language compared to the first language.
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