PhD Candidate
Mara received her bachelor's in Communication and Information Science and her research master's in Language and Cognition at the University of Groningen. Mara is currently working on her PhD project "Language learning never gets old - implicit and explicit language learning in seniors".
Project
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Language learning never gets old - implicit and explicit language learning in seniors
This project extends the recent work of bilingualism as a possible anti-ageing tool to monolingual seniors by introducing the bilingual experience later in life. Mixed results have been found in the few studies investigating the effects of language training for seniors, most likely due to several pitfalls in their designs Therefore, we developed a new method to overcome these issues. We look into the cognitive effects of language learning in older adulthood using behavioural tasks as well as neuro-imaging. Additionally, the PhD project investigates seniors' language learning needs and wellbeing in regards to foreign language learning for the first time.
