在現代，越來越多人會多門語言，我們也自然認為會多種語言的人比較聰明，但是事實真的如此嗎?不如我們來從下面的聽力短文裡，尋找真正的答案。
In the early nineteen fifties, researchers found that people scored lower on intelligence tests if they spoke more than one language. Research in the sixties found the opposite. Bilingual people scored higher than monolinguals-people who speak only one language. So which is it?
20世紀50年代早期，研究人員發現掌握超過一門語言的人在智力測試上得分更低。而60年代研究的發現則恰恰相反，“雙語者”比只懂一種語言的“單語者”得分更高。那麼，哪個發現是正確的呢?
Researchers presented their newest studies last month at a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The latest evidence shows that being bilingual does not necessarily make people smarter. But researcher Ellen Bialystock says it probably does make you better at certain skills.
研究人員上個月在美國科學促進會的一次會議上介紹了他們的最新研究成果。最新證據表明，通曉雙語並不能使人更聰明。但研究人員艾倫·比亞斯表示，它會使你在某些技能上表現更好。
Ellen Bialystock:"Imagine driving down the highway. There are many things that could capture your attention and you really need to be able to monitor all of them. Why would bilingualism make you any better at that?"
比雅利斯托克：“想像一下在高速公路上開車，可能會有很多吸引你注意力的東西，你必須能夠同時關注所有這一些。為什麼雙語環境可能會讓你在這方面表現更好呢?”
And the answer, she says, is that bilingual people are often better at controlling their attention - a function called the executive control system.
她表示，答案就是“雙語者”更善於控制自己的注意力，這種能力也被稱為行為控制系統。
Ellen Biaystock:'It's quite possibly the most important cognitive system we have because it's where all of your decisions about what to attend to, what to ignore, what to process are made."
艾倫·比亞斯托：“這可能是人類具備的'最重要的認知系統。因為你做出專注、忽略、執行的決定時都離不開它。”
Ms. Biaystock is a psychology professor at York University in Toronto, Canada. She says the best method to measure the executive control system is called the Stroop Test. A person is shown words in different colors. The person has to ignore the word but say the color. The problem is that the words are all names of colors.
比亞斯托是加拿大約克大學的心理學教授。她表示，衡量行為控制系統能力最好的辦法是斯特魯測驗(Stroop Test)。該測試向被測試者展示各種不同顏色的單詞。被測試者需要忽略單詞本身，說出字型的顏色。難點在於，這些單詞都是一些顏色的名稱。
Ellen Bialystock:"So you would have the word blue written in red, but you have to say red. But blue is so salient, it's just lighting up all these circuits in your brain, and you really want to say blue. So you need a mechanism to override that so that you can say red. That's the executive control system."
艾倫·比亞斯托：“因此，‘藍色’這個單詞可能是用紅色書寫的，而你必須說‘紅色’。但‘藍色’這兩個字非常突出，它一直閃現在你的大腦中，你很想說‘藍色’。這時你就需要一種抑制該想法的系統，你才能說出‘紅色’。這就是行為控制系統。”
Her work shows that bilingual people continually practice this function. They have to, because both languages are active in their brain at the same time. They need to suppress one to be able to speak in the other.
她的研究表明，“雙語者”在不斷鍛鍊這種能力，因為兩種語言同時都在他們大腦中活躍，他們必須抑制一種語言，才能用另一種語言表達。
