Why do we stick our tongues when we are focused?

Why do we stick our tongues when we are focused? The children They do this especially when they are occupied with toys and gadgets that require manual activity and concentration, but even adults are not “immune” from stretching their tongues when they are focused on something. Let’s find out why or why we are doing this from what was discovered in a recent study.

Stick out the tongue when concentrating

Finishing touches to complete and master a job such as painting, repairing a broken object and building a ModelSophisticated cake decoration; They all Situations in which we are fully focused In what we do, it is precisely in those moments that Our tongue can stick out of the mouth and stay a little tight between the teeth, as if it could somehow help and guide us in the activity we are doing. Many athletes love the former NBA champion Michael Jordan They are also famous for their “tongues”. This is it involuntary gesture In most cases, Most likely related to the origin of the language, Where the appearance of the word was preceded by a gestural phase.

This question was analyzed by two scientists: Gillian S. Forrester and Alina Rodriguez, from the Department of Psychology in the University of Westminster’s School of Science and Technology and the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at Imperial College London respectively. They are both authors of the article “Language demise: Implications for the evolution and evolution of language” published in the specialized scientific journal Cognition.

In their article, they explained how They conducted a study in which they subjected four-year-old children (with typical twist) into a series of cognitive tasks, about Monitor the frequency of tongue protrusion. The youngsters were engaged in activities that required fine manual skills, gross motor movements, and no motor movement. to hesitate bump subordinate Tongue I know positively correlates with the motor task, The higher the required accuracy, the more likely the tongue will remain on the right side. For any reason?

The most fascinating explanation relates to the fact that Expression of the hand and tongue is controlled by common brain processes . «This would have provided a natural bridge for the development of an early communication system, the transition from hand gestures to speech in early humans.“,” identified Professor Forrester in a press release issued by the University of Westminster.

It is no coincidence that Another studio It’s called “Language as a Tool: Motor Competence with a Tool That Predicts Individual Language Abilities.” Published in Frontiers in Psychology Show that there are common cognitive processes between the use of tools (complex manual skills) and language: The area of ​​the brain that is activated while we are drawing, writing or fixing something with our hands is actually close to the speech area, and both are located in the left hemisphere.

The Communication between monkeys occurs mainly through hand gestures, So it is very likely that our ancestors Of the genus Homo also used similar gestures. However, with invention subordinate The first complex tools And hands are busy The dominant method of communication is transmitted to the mouth, a transmission that specifically facilitates the proximity between the areas of the brain responsible for controlling the hands and tongue. «This is probably why you see a lot of gestures when we talk, because sight is our main sensory tool.» He told WordsSideKick.com Forrester.

However, although Neurological and functional communication between the hands and the tongue well documented The exact reason they appear when we focus on something that has not yet been proven. It could be a kind of “remnant” of our ancestors’ style of communication, or a reaction associated with proximity between the areas of the brain that control the tongue and the joints of the hands.