Category: Media

Donostia, January 2012 .- Anyone who has attended a performance of improvisers will no doubt be surprised by the ability of improvisation and quick thinking of its protagonists, experts in composing complex rhymes in just seconds. How is it possible? Do the improvisers of cognitive abilities than the rest of us? Are they yours or have innate abilities acquired through training? What goes through your head at that moment magical? How is it possible to compose a zortziko (eight-bar verse) in a few seconds? What complicated mechanisms are activated in their brains?

Some of these questions, yet unfathomable mysteries have won over science that has been attracted by the secret behind this strong tradition of Basque culture. And recent advances in cognitive neuroscience make it possible for the first time, science has decided to approach the centenary bertsos Art. The fact that one of the leading centers in the world in this discipline, the Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language (BCBL), has its headquarters in San Sebastian, and the enthusiastic cooperation of improvisers themselves through Herriko Euskal Elkartea improviser have led to the launch of an ambitious research project to investigate the cognitive processes that hides the bertso.

The challenge is a study of one year to try to figure out from a scientific perspective that makes them so special improvisers: Do cognitive capabilities than the rest or is that language skills have been trained to become experts in the art of rhyme?

With this working hypothesis, 18-class improvisers, including Andoni Egaña, Maialen Lujanbio, Amets Arzallus or Amuriza Look, these days are being subjected to different tests in BCBL facilities in San Sebastian, from computer to behavioral testing sessions magnetic resonance imaging. In parallel, the same study performed with groups of Basques who have not developed skills in the art of improvisation and students bertso-Eskola.

In this way, scientists can compare how it is produced in each of the groups the process of storage and retrieval of information in the brain, giving clues to whether the improvisers have developed special skills in this discipline. This can result in future development of training tools, not only for improvisers, but for anyone who wants to improve their fluency.

The margaritas, the origin of the project

The origin of this curious story in which tradition and science come together is in the month of May during the making of the documentary Asier Altuna improviser, currently in theaters. Following the passage of Andoni Egaña the facilities of the BCBL, improvisational ability of improvisers attracted wide attention from researchers of the center.

In particular, its director, Manuel Carreiro, was impressed by the ability of Egana to order the words in your brain grouped by families like the petals that make up a margarita. The scientists concluded that the improvisers are real experts in organizing the information in your brain, which is of particular interest to a scientific discipline such as cognitive neuroscience.

Neuroscientists wonder whether this ability of improvisers, very interesting to study the oral tradition as a vehicle of communication is a result of increased storage capacity in their brains or have developed a faster and more effectively when accessing that stored information. Put another way: Do you have wider roads or your car is faster?

As noted by Kepa Paz-Alonso, BCBL researcher responsible for the investigation, “the study of language production and cognitive processes that underlie expert in oral transmission may shed light on central issues and current cognitive neuroscience of language.” “Knowing the neural correlates of these processes can inform cognitive linguistic and current theories in cognitive neuroscience of language, as well as elucidate the neural mechanisms underlying language production optimized” he explains.

This scientific curiosity soon bore fruit in an agreement between BCBL and improviser Herriko Euskal Elkartea, which led to the planning and design of different tests to obtain the necessary scientific data. A few months later, the first data collection phase is underway and will be completed in the coming months. After completion of the fieldwork, the first results will be available later this year.

Behavioral tests and MRI

To this end, each of the three groups (bertsolaris, people unfamiliar with the bertsos and bertso-eskolak students) will have been three phases of testing in the facilities of the BCBL in Donostia, equipped with cutting-edge scientific equipment to study the brain human.

The first session, behavioral nature, involves the interaction of participants with a computer through a software specifically designed for the experiment. Thus, they are subjected to several tasks that require the participation of higher cognitive functions. Among others, we analyze functions such as reasoning (crystallized and fluid), the information processing speed, the ability to inhibit distracting information to focus attention on relevant information, networks attentional or task switching (related to complex reasoning semantics, phonology and the rhyme).

The second phase of tests of verbal fluency tasks analyzed by a magnetic resonance device, a next-generation scientific instrument capable of obtaining every two or three seconds dozens of 3D images that allow you to examine brain activity while it performs complex functions . The MRI provides information about both structural (anatomical) and functional (activation associated with specific tasks). Thus, analyzing the brain while you exercise it phonological, semantic and rhyme in different degrees of difficulty.

The third and final phase is already in a practical test where the participant has to rhyme bertsos directly, in a manner analogous to the improvisers make it into real action. Thus, 30 different issues arise each participant, which must rhyme using different metrics, since the Kopla Txiki bertso cell until zortziko Txiki, a discursive formula that requires more effort. On the one hand, MRI provides images of brain function during exercise, and secondly, the quality of processed bertsos be assessed by experts. Thus, you can analyze whether brain activity is different when you improvise a current and a bright bertso.

The cognitive neuroscience experts believe BCBL this research project can provide very interesting scientific material that sheds more light on the mechanisms the brain uses to perform complex functions related to language production. However, aware that science, as well as giving answers, more questions often asked are convinced that this study represents the first step in a collaboration that will continue in the future. Science seems to have hit a reef in the world of bertso.

About the BCBL

The Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language (BCBL) is an interdisciplinary international research center based in San Sebastian for the study of cognition, brain and language promoted by the Basque Government to promote science and research Euskadi. The center, which is among the BERC (Basque Excellence Research Center), has among its partners Ikerbasque, Innobasque, the Provincial Council of Gipuzkoa and the Basque Country University.