معرفی
Dr. Thomas Bak is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Edinburgh’s School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences. His research focuses on the cognitive impacts of bilingualism and multilingualism across the lifespan, particularly in relation to dementia, aging, and neurodegenerative diseases. He leads studies on language learning’s effects on executive functions, cross-cultural cognitive assessment tools (e.g., the Edinburgh Cognitive and Behavioral ALS Screen), and the interplay between language, motor function, and cognition.
He teaches courses such as Cognitive Neuroscience, Clinical Cognitive Neuroscience, and Dementia for medical students. Bak actively supervises PhD students in areas like lifespan language use and dementia’s cognitive aspects. His work includes large-scale online studies on language learning experiences, bilingualism in aging populations, and motor/cognitive screening in clinical settings.
Key research themes include:
- Bilingualism’s protective effects against dementia onset
- Cross-linguistic memory and attention mechanisms
- Motor dysfunction in neurodegenerative diseases
- Global health strategies for dementia prevention
Bak’s outreach includes keynote lectures on multilingualism’s societal and cognitive benefits, such as his 2020 Edinburgh Neuroscience Christmas Lecture on ‘The executive brain: why concepts matter.’ He emphasizes interdisciplinary approaches to understanding language’s role in cognition and health.
