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Investigating bilingual memory organization through proactive interference

Lize Van der Linden (Université Catholique de Louvain, Belgium), Wouter Duyck (Ghent University, Belgium), Marie-Pierre de Partz (Université Catholique de Louvain, Belgium), & Arnaud Szmalec (Université Catholique de Louvain, Belgium)

lize.vanderlinden@uclouvain.be

bilingualism; bilingual memory organization; cross-language interference

The extent to which bilingual memory is language (in)dependent remains a matter of scientific debate. In this study, we used the n-back recognition paradigm in order to obtain a better understanding of dual-language control in bilinguals’ memory. Therefore, we tested Dutch-French balanced bilinguals on several variants of a 2-back task involving so-called lure trials. In this task, participants are required to indicate whether a word matches the word that was presented 2 positions before (e.g., huis-vork-lamp-vork is an example of a 2-back match). In this 2-back procedure, lure trials are mismatch trials where the novel word matches the word that was presented just before the word in target 2-back position (e.g., the 2-back trial vork-fiets-lamp-vork).It has been demonstrated that 2-back recognition performance is interfered by such lure trials [1]. This lure interference effect is assumed to reflect a competition between familiarity matching and recollection in recognition memory. In the present study, we created a bilingual version of the 2-back paradigm, where half of the words were in the first language (L1) or the second language (L2). In a series of experiments, we observed comparable lure interference effects in both languages and more interestingly, we also found a cross-language lure interference effect (e.g.,fourchette-ezel-huis-vork) as well as interference from cross-language semantically related lures (e.g., couteau-ezel-huis-vork). We further also showed that cross-language interference only emerged when 2-back recognition was driven by recollection memory rather than by familiarity-matching. The implications of these findings for bilingual memory and for dual-language control more generally are discussed.

 

References

[1] Szmalec, A., Verbruggen, F., Vandierendonck, A., & Kemps, E. Control of interference during working memory updating. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 37(1):137-151, 2011.

Bilingual advantage in inhibitory control: Variations across inhibition tasks

Brenda Iok Wong (Ryerson University)

brendaiok.wong@psych.ryerson.ca

bilingual; inhibitory control; inhibition tasks; age; review

Green proposed that bilinguals exert inhibitory control during everyday conversations, as they need to suppress the production of the language irrelevant to the conversational context [1]. This inhibitory control is monitored by the supervisory attentional system, which is the same system believed to be involved in general executive functions. Given their lifelong practice in suppressing their irrelevant language during speech, Bialystok suggested that bilinguals should show better performance than monolinguals in general inhibitory control [2]. In the present analysis, I reviewed existing findings to investigate whether bilinguals showed this advantage in all inhibitory functions, or in specific functions that are more closely related to the inhibitory control in bilingual language use. Following Friedman and Miyake’s framework of inhibitory functions [3], I hypothesized that the bilingual advantage would appear predominantly in tasks that involve prepotent response inhibition and resistance to distractor interference, but not in those related to resistance to proactive interference. I further explored whether unbalanced bilinguals would show an additional advantage in prepotent response inhibition over balanced bilinguals, given their need to override their dominant first language when speaking their second language. Results of this analysis indicated that the bilingual advantage in inhibitory control was not consistently found in the literature. Nevertheless, there was some support for the hypothesis that this advantage was more commonly found in tasks related to prepotent response inhibition and resistance to distractor interference than in tasks related to resistance to proactive interference. More interestingly, the results also suggested that the bilingual advantage in the former two inhibitory functions differed across age groups, leading to the speculation that bilinguals’ development in these functions might follow distinct trajectories. Lastly, there was no evidence that unbalanced bilinguals had an additional advantage in prepotent response inhibition over balanced bilinguals. The findings of this analysis would provide directions for future research in bilingualism and inhibitory control.

 

References

[1] Green, D. W. (1998). Mental control of the bilingual lexico-semantic system. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 1, 67-81. doi: 10.1017/S1366728998000133

[2] Bialystok, E. (1999). Cognitive complexity and attentional control in the bilingual mind. Child Development, 70(3), 636-644. doi:10.1111/1467-8624.00046

[3] Friedman, N. P. & Miyake, A. (2004). The relations among inhibition and interference control functions: A latent-variable analysis. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 133(1), 101-135. doi: 10.1037/0096-3445.133.1.101

The effects of bilingualism on interference control tasks: a meta-analysis.

Seamus Donnelly, Patricia Brooks, Bruce Homer (City University of New York, Graduate Center)

sdonnelly@gc.cuny.edu

Bilingualism; executive control; inhibitory control; meta-analysis; multi-level models.

An open question in cognitive science is whether and under what circumstances bilinguals outperform monolinguals on interference control tasks. Results have been mixed on both interference costs (Hilchey & Klein, 2011) and global RTs (Paap & Greenberg, 2013). One explanation for this variability is variation across studies in tasks, age and labs. This poster reports on a meta-analysis synthesizing these studies and testing the effects of four potential moderators (described below). The analysis contains 73 comparisons from published studies, reflecting 5538 unique participants.

Moderators tested include RT cost, task, participant age, and lab. RT cost refers to whether the effect size reflects global RT or interference cost. These costs are thought to reflect separable components of executive function and are implicated in different models of bilingual language processing (Hilchey & Klein, 2011). Task refers to the type of interference control task included, Simon, Flanker, Stroop or other. While these tasks are all considered interference control tasks, they are often uncorrelated (Paap & Sawi, 2014). Age was coded categorically and includes three groups: children, younger adults and older adults. Finally labs that contributed more than four effect sizes were included as separate dummy coded variables.

The effects of these moderators were tested in a series of three-level meta-analyses. Three-level meta-analysis explicitly models the dependence between effect sizes from the same sample and was necessary since most samples contributed effect sizes for global RT and interference cost. A first model, which included no moderators, yielded an effect size of d = .39 (CI: .19 – .59). A second model, which included RT cost as a moderator, did not significantly improve fit (p = .52). However, as it is plausible that the effects of other moderators might be different for global RTs and interference costs, RT cost was included in all subsequent models, despite being non-significant on its own. Subsequent models revealed no main effect of task, and no interaction between task and RT cost.  There was no main effect of age, but a significant interaction between age and RT cost; for older adults differences in interference costs were larger than global RTs while for children differences in global RTs were larger than differences in interference costs. There was a significant main effect of lab, but it did not interact with cost.

The significant interaction between age and RT cost is difficult to interpret. The significant main effect for lab may be driven by differences in subject pools, differences in defining and handling outliers in RT distributions or other methodological factors.

 

References

[1] Hilchey M, Klein R. Are there bilingual advantages on nonlinguistic interference tasks? Implications for the plasticity of executive control processes. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review [serial online], 18(4):625-658, 2011.

[2] Paap K, Greenberg Z. There is no coherent evidence for a bilingual advantage in executive processing. Cognitive Psychology [serial online], 66(2):232-258, 2013.

[3] Paap, K. R., & Sawi, O. Bilingual advantages in executive functioning: problems in convergent validity, discriminant validity, and the identification of the theoretical constructs. Frontiers in psychology, 5, 2014

 

 

Referential choice in a second language: evidence from highly proficient learners of English

Carla Contemori & Giuli Dussias (Pennsylvania State University)

cuc29@psu.edu

Referential choice; syntax; English; Spanish

The ability to refer to entities in the surrounding world constitutes a prerequisite for successful communication. Native speakers use attenuated forms (e.g., pronouns or phonologically silent elements) when the referent is in the addressee’s focus of attention (e.g., Arnold & Griffin, 2007, A&G). However, they use more explicit forms (e.g., full NPs) when their own focus of attention is distributed among potentially competing referents in the discourse, either through the visual presence (Fukumura et al., 2010) and/or through the previous mention of another animate referent (A&G). Studies on learners of pro-drop languages (e.g., Spanish) have demonstrated that highly proficient second language (L2) learners may over-use pronominal forms when a null subject is required, showing residual indeterminacy in the L2 referential choice (e.g., Sorace & Filiaci,2006). However, we do not know if learners of a non-null subject language experience similar problems in the choice of referring expression. The present research aims at contributing to fill in this gap, by examining the process of choosing between pronouns and proper names in L2 speakers of English whose L1 is Spanish.

Eighteen English monolinguals and seventeen L2 speakers participated in a story telling task based on A&G. Participants were presented with two pictures that contained: (1) one character in the first panel and one in the second panel; (2) two characters in the first panel and two in the second panel (different gender); (3) two characters in the first panel and one in the second panel (different gender); (4) two characters in the first panel and one in the second panel (same gender). After listening to a description of the first panel, participants were asked to describe the second panel.

For native speakers, even when a pronoun would not be ambiguous, the presence of another character in the discourse (either in the first panel or in both panels) decreased pronoun use to refer to the most prominent character in the discourse. For the L2 group, results showed a higher production of pronouns than in native speakers when there were two characters in the preceding discourse who had either similar or different gender. We conclude that the production of referring expression is susceptible to L1 interference in highly proficient learners of English. We hypothesize that L2 participants fail to suppress the assumption from their native language that overt pronouns are interpreted as referring to a non-topic referent. The learners produced more overt pronouns in two-referent contexts than native speakers of English likely because an overt pronoun is more explicit for them than a null form. While it may seem that they are being more explicit, in fact they are not yet explicit enough as an English native speaker.

 

References

[1] Arnold, J. & Griffin, Z. M. The effect of additional characters on choice of referring expression: Everyone counts. Journal of Memory and Language, 56(4):521–536, 2007.

[2] Fukumura, K., van Gompel, R. P. G., & Pickering, M. J. The use of visual context during the production of referring expressions. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 63:1700–15, 2010.

[3] Sorace, A., & Filiaci, F. Anaphora resolution in near-native speakers of Italian. Second Language Research, 22(3):339-368, 2006.

Contributions of bilingualism and public speaking training to cognitive control differences among young adults

Zhilong Xie (Jiangxi Normal University; Guangdong University of Foreign Studies) &Yanping Dong (Guangdong University of Foreign Studies)

ypdong@gdufs.edu.cn

Bilingual advantage; bilingual experience; public speaking training; conflict monitoring, mental set shifting

The Flanker task, the Number Stroop task, and the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) were adopted to examine how bilingualism and public speaking training contribute to cognitive control differences among young adults. Four groups of participants were tested: monolinguals, general bilinguals, Chinese (L1) public speaking bilinguals, and English (L2) public speaking bilinguals. ANOVA and regression analyses showed that: 1) the speaking groups performed faster than the other two groups in the Flanker task (i.e., better in conflict monitoring), whereas the L2 public speaking group performed the fastest in the Number Stroop; 2) The three bilingual groups performed better than the monolinguals in the WCST (i.e., better in mental set shifting), and this advantage was more robust when L2 proficiency was higher. The results show that specific aspects of language experience may incur enhancement in specific aspects of cognitive control. These findings actually lend support to the recently proposed view by Valian (2015) that benefits from bilingualism are inconsistent because individuals vary in the number and kinds of experiences they have that promote superior cognitive control.

 

References

[1] Abutalebi, J., Della Rosa, P. A., Green, D. W., Hernandez, M., Scifo, P., Keim, R., . . . Costa, A. Bilingualism tunes the anterior cingulate cortex for conflict monitoring. Cerebral Cortex, 22(9):2076-2086, 2012.

[2] Bialystok, E., Craik, F. I. M., Green, D. W., & Gollan, T. H. Bilingual Minds. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 10(3):89-129, 2009.

[3] Costa, A., Hernandez, M., Costa-Faidella, J., & Sebastian-Galles, N. On the bilingual advantage in conflict processing: now you see it, now you don’t. Cognition, 113(2):135-149, 2009.

[4] Dong, Y., & Xie, Z. Contributions of L2 proficiency and interpreting experience to cognitive control differences among young adult bilinguals. Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 26(5):506-519, 2014.

[5] Green, D. W., & Abutalebi, J. Language control in bilinguals: The adaptive control hypothesis. Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 25(5):515-530, 2013.

[6] Jones, C. R., Fazio, R. H., & Vasey, M. W. Attentional Control Buffers the Effect of Public Speaking Anxiety on Performance. Social psychological and personality science, 3(5):556-561, 2012.

[7] Kroll, J. F., & Bialystok, E. Understanding the Consequences of Bilingualism for Language Processing and Cognition. Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 25(5):497-514, 2013.

[8] Miyake, A., & Friedman, N. P. The Nature and Organization of Individual Differences in Executive Functions: Four General Conclusions. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 21(1):8-14, 2012.

[9] Mueller, S. C. The influence of emotion on cognitive control: relevance for development and adolescent psychopathology. Frontiers in Psychology, 2:327, 2013.

[10] Paap, K. R., & Greenberg, Z. I. There is no coherent evidence for a bilingual advantage in executive processing. Cognitive Psychology, 66(2):232-258, 2013

[11] Valian, V. Bilingualism and cognition. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 18(1):3-24, 2015.

[12] Yudes, C., Macizo, P., & Bajo, T.The influence of expertise in simultaneous interpreting on non-verbal executive processes. Frontiers in Psychology, 1:309, 2011.

Processing code-switching in Algerian bilinguals: Effects of language use and semantic expectancy

Souad Kheder (Univeristy of Florida)

skheder@ufl.edu

Code switching (CS), that is the alternation between languages in bilinguals, is mainly conversational and contextual and is often observed in informal situations. This suggests that it is easier and more economical to mix languages than to keep them separate in certain contexts (Rodriguez-Fornells et al., 2012). It is therefore essential to explore switch costs in different bilingual contexts (Heredia et al., 2001; Green, 2011). This study investigates the switch costs in Algerian Arabic-French bilinguals who frequently code-switch, using contexts in which CS is more or less typical. A total of 134 bilinguals are tested using a bi-modal (auditory and visual) design to investigate code switching during listening. Experiment 1 explores whether a semantic context that is highly predictive of a cognate at the switch point (1) facilitates switching and eliminates switch costs.

  • a) J’ai besoin d’argent, je dois passer aujourd’hui à la banque. (Cognate)

“I need money, I have to go today to the bank.”

  1. b) Nɛsħaq ad-drahɛm, lazɛm nʤuz el-yuum ʕla la banque.

“I need money, I have to go today to the bank.”

Experiment 2 investigates whether the habit of switching between a pair of languages rather than another pair of the languages that the bilingual speaks affects the expectation of switching. Since Algerian bilinguals code-switch between Algerian Arabic and French, but not between Standard Arabic and French, a context with Algerian Arabic as the base language may trigger CS compared to when the base language is Standard Arabic, making of Algerian Arabic-French CS (2-a) rather more expected and less demanding than Standard Arabic-French CS (2-b).

  • a) Ki kunt nqaʃar fi lbatˁatˁa qatˁaʕt sˁabʕi b- le couteau.                     (Non-cognate)

“When I peeled the potatoes I cut my fingers with the knife.”

  1. b) ʕindama kuntu ʔuqaʃiru el batˁatˁa qatˁaʕtu ʔusˁbuʕi b- le couteau.

“When I peeled the potatoes I cut my fingers with the knife.

Given that participants are frequent code-switchers, we expect a cognate effect to survive in the switching condition. A cognate switch is named faster than a non-cognate switch, suggesting that both languages are activated while listening and that this activation facilitates switching. In other words, CS is easier when the switch is a familiar word that shares semantic and lexical information in both languages. However, we predict that the listeners do not anticipate a language switch when the base language is Standard Arabic. This supports the idea that the bilingual’s readiness to code-switch is constrained within language use (Meuter, 2009). The fact that a bilingual speaks two languages does not guarantee the occurrence of CS. This also suggests that the control processing during CS depends on the speaker’s habitual language use (Green & Wei, 2014).

 

References

[1] Heredia, R. R., Altarriba, J. Bilingual language mixing: Why do bilinguals code-switch? Current Directions in Psychological Science, 10(5):164-168, 2001.

[2] Green, D. W. Language control in different contexts: the behavioural ecology of bilingual speakers. Perspective]. Frontiers in Psychology, 2, 2011.

[3] Green, D. W., Wei, L., A control process model of code-switching, Language, Cognition and Neuroscience, 29(4):499-511, 2014.

[4] Meuter, R., F., I. Language selection and performance optimisation in multilinguals. In K. de Bot, L. Isurin & D.Winford (Eds.), Multidisciplinary approaches to code switching. Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins Pub. Company, 2009.

[5] Rodriguez-Fornells, A., Kramer, U. M., Lorenzo-Seva, U., Festman, J., & Münte, T. F. Self-assessment of individual differences in language switching. Frontiers in Psychology, 2:388, 2012.

Linguistic code-switching affects executive function in some bilinguals: First results from a new methodology

Carissa Kang (Cornell University), Gita Martohardjono (City University of New York), & Barbara Lust (Cornell University)

ck577@cornell.edu

Code-switching; Bilinguals; Executive FunctionIn this study, we examine the link between code-switching (CS; alternating between two or more languages within a conversation) – and executive function (EF). Past work revealed that language switching is challenging and requires cognitive control, and similar brain regions are activated during language switching and EF tasks (Abutalebi & Green, 2007). Others have speculated that CS may enhance cognitive advantages attributed to bilingualism. Although there has been some work suggesting that more frequent language switching correlates with better EF task performance (Soveri, Rodriguez-Fornells, & Laine, 2011; Yim & Bialystok, 2012), to date there has been no evidence that within subjects, CS and EF interact directly.

This raises the prediction that mechanisms of EF and CS in bilingualism would interact, leading to behavioral effects. In fact, a reciprocal interaction might be possible. This prediction is tested here with a new paradigm to assess direct interaction between EF and CS, to see if depletion of EF will lead to a diminishment of CS productivity. Furthermore, given that the nature of bilingualism varies so widely, we test whether this hypothesized effect would correlate with participants’ self-reported frequency of mixing, attitudes towards CS, and level of bilingualism.

To measure CS, participants discussed topics and switched languages upon hearing a beep. CS performance was quantified by several measures including the reaction time (RT) taken to switch into another language after the beep. Participants completed two CS tasks – one at the start (CS1) and one after EF depletion (CS2). We used the Stroop (in both languages; all incongruent trials) and a verbal task switching (Yim & Bialystok, 2012; see Appendix) to deplete participants’ verbal EF.

Initial data analyses included 17 Chinese-English bilinguals (8 females, M = 21.4 (SD = 1.3)) varying in nature of bilingualism (Table 1). Correlational analyses revealed that RT difference (i.e., whether participants took longer time to switch in CS2) was negatively correlated with: a) attitudes towards CS, b) frequency of mixing, and c) verbal task switching scores (Table 2). Level of bilingualism was not significantly correlated with RT difference. Linear regression revealed that only frequency of mixing marginally predicted RT difference (R2= .21, SE = .46, p = .068). This suggests that those with positive attitudes towards mixing languages who frequently mixed languages were less likely to be negatively affected by the verbal EF depletion, as seen by their CS2 performance. Our results have implications for a general theory involving the representation of general cognitive processes such as EF and linguistic mechanisms of control.

 

References

[1] Abutalebi, J. & Green, D. Bilingual language production: The neurocognition of language representation and control. Journal of Neurolinguistics, 20:242-275, 2007.

[2] Soveri, A., Rodriguez-Fornells, A., Laine, M. Is there a relationship between language switching and executive functions in bilingualism? Introducing a within group analysis approach. Frontiers in Psychology, 2:1-8, 2011.

[3] Yim, O., & Bialystok, E., (2012). Degree of conversational code-switching enhances verbal task switching in Cantonese-English bilinguals. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 15:873 -883, 2012.

Are all code-switchers equally “switched-on”? Exploring the differential impact of code-switching styles on bilinguals’ executive control functions.

Julia Hofweber (University of Reading)

j.e.hofweber@pgr.reading.ac.uk

bilingualism and cognition; executive control functions; code-switching; bilingualism and mental flexibility

This poster explores the question how code-switching (CS) modulates executive functions. Bilinguals’ inhibitory advantages are attributed to frequent practice at suppressing co-activated non-target varieties in monolingual contexts. CS however allows co-activated varieties to reach articulatory stages raising the question to which extent inhibition is recruited. The flipside of not inhibiting languages is practice at task-switching as the co-activated varieties need to be managed (Green & Wei, 2014). Three types of CS varying in degree of L1-L2 co-activation and resulting inhibitory control and task-switching involvement have been described (Muysken, 2000): alternation (L1-L2 phrase juxtaposition involving little co-activation), insertion (L2 constituents embedded in L1 structure with co-activation of lexical schemata), dense CS (co-activation of grammatical, lexical and semantic schemata). The emergence of these patterns depends on speakers’ language history and dominance profiles. The linguistic characteristics of the three types of CS lead to the prediction that late bilingual L2-users are more likely to use their dominant L1 as the matrix language fostering insertional code-switching. Heritage speakers in established bilingual communities may mix languages more densely.

This study measured executive functions amongst two groups of German-English bilinguals with different CS profiles: German L2-users of English engaging predominantly in insertional CS and German heritage speakers in South Africa with a greater preference for dense CS. The independent factor CS preference is treated as a continuous variable to capture individual variation using multiple methods: questionnaires creating scores for CS frequency, intentionality, type and attitude, elicited and authentic emails tapping into free production, acceptability judgement and sentence repetition tasks indicating cognitive embedding. The dependent variable executive control performance is tested using flanker tasks. Tasks are arranged into blocks varying in degree of task-switching thus generating not only a conflict effect measuring inhibition, but also a mixing cost measuring mental flexibility (Costa et al., 2009). As dense CS recruits and enhances inhibition least and task-switching most, increased preference for dense CS is predicted to correlate positively with conflict effect and negatively with mixing cost. Moreover, bilinguals are predicted to outperform monolinguals in conditions requiring greater mental flexibility. Indeed preliminary pilot study results reveal the most salient bilingual conflict effect advantages in blocks challenging mental flexibility most. Scores from the acceptability judgement display a negative relationship with mixing cost for all CS types, but this correlation only reaches significance for dense CS (r = – 0.56; p < 0.05). This indicates that mental flexibility is enhanced most by the type of CS involving linguistic co-activation at multiple levels.

 

References

[1] Costa, A., Hernandez, M., Costa-Faidella, J., Sebastian-Galles, N. On the bilingual advantage in conflict processing: Now you see it, now you don’t. Cognition, 113:135-149, 2009.

[2] Green, D.W., Wei, L. A control process model of CS. Language, Cognition and Neuroscience, 24(9):499-511, 2009.

[3] Muysken, P. Bilingual Speech: A Typology of Code-mixing. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.

Cognitive control in interpreting

Soudabeh Nour (Brussels Institute of Applied Linguistics, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium), Maurits van den Noort (Brussels Institute of Applied Linguistics, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium & Research Group of Pain and Neuroscience, Kyung Hee University, Seoul, Republic of Korea) & Esli Struys (Center of Linguistics, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium)

Soudabeh.nour@vub.ac.be

Bilingualism; Cognitive control; Interpreting; Simon task; Stroop; Conflict resolution; Working memory; fMRI

Multilinguals, who use their languages on a daily basis, show cognitive advantages; especially, when control requirements are high [1]. How is this finding related to one specific subgroup of highly proficient bilingual speakers: interpreters, who professionally use their cognitive control skills on a daily basis?

In the present pilot-study, we compared a group of 13 highly proficient bilingual speakers with a group of 13 professional interpreters. All participants were recruited in Brussels and we controlled for second language proficiency, gender, and age. All participants completed the color Simon task and the numerical Stroop task, and both the accuracy rates and the reaction times were collected.

The results of our study show that both the highly proficient bilingualism group and the interpreter group perform extremely well on both cognitive control tasks. For the Simon task the following accuracy scores for the highly proficient bilinguals are found: 95.59% (SD = 13.52%) on the congruent items and 94.49% (SD = 13.65%) on the incongruent items versus for the interpreters 98.56% (SD = 2.91%) on the congruent items and 98.10% (SD = 2.70%) on the incongruent items. Both groups show similar accuracy scores (p > .05). The analysis of the reaction times shows that both groups do not differ significantly (p > .05). The results of the numerical Stroop task show a similar pattern. The highly proficient bilinguals are 94.08% (SD = 15.85%) correct on the congruent items and 89.22% (SD = 15.54%) on the incongruent items versus for the interpreting group 98.39% (SD = 2.40%) on the congruent items and 93.56% (SD = 4.26%) on the incongruent items. No significant differences in accuracy scores and reaction times are found between the two groups (p > .05).

To conclude no differences in accuracy and processing time were found on both cognitive control tasks between groups, indicating that the interpreters’ advantage over non-interpreter bilinguals do not extend to conflict resolution. These results are consistent with other studies that fail to report any professional interpreters’ advantages in tasks that require interference control such as the Stroop [2] or the Simon tasks [3]. This pilot study is part of a bigger project on cognitive control in interpreting. The focus will be on other control components which are involved in interpreting, such as working memory (verbal/ non-verbal) and the attention network, using both behavioral tests and functional magnetic resonance imaging in a longitudinal research design.

 

References

[1] Kroll, J.F., & Bialystok. E. Understanding the consequences of bilingualism for language processing and cognition. Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 25(5):497–514, 2013.

[2] Köpke, B., & Nespoulous, J.L. Working memory performance in expert and novice interpreters. Interpreting, 8(1):1–23, 2006.

[3] Yudes, C., Macizo, P., & Bajo, T. The influence of expertise in simultaneous interpreting on non-verbal executive processes. Frontiers in Psychology, 2:309, 2011.

 

The Effect of Translating and Interpreting Experience on Young Adults’ Cognitive Control Development —A Longitudinal Study

Yuhua Liu and Yanping Dong (Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, China)

ypdong@gdufs.edu.cn, ypdong65@hotmail.com

bilingual advantage, cognitive control, translation, interpreting, switching

Previous studies indicate that the bilingual experience of interpreting brings about the switching advantage of cognitive control, but this bilingual experience of interpreting generally includes trainings of both written translation and oral interpretation. To tear apart the two in the research of cognitive control may help answer the question of what exactly brings about bilingual advantages.

The present longitudinal study investigated how the two specific bilingual experiences of translating and interpreting would influence cognitive control development in young adults. After matching participants’ relevant features in the pre-test, we compared the post-test performance on the number Stroop task、color-shape switch task、WCST、2-back updating task and two working memory span tasks across three groups of Chinese-English young adult bilinguals, who differed mainly in their half-year long bilingual experience: one for English (L2) learning, one for translating and one for interpreting. The results show that the interpreting experience enhanced switching ability significantly in both color-shape and WCST tasks. The translating experience tended to improve performance in a 2-back updating task and one switching task (color-shape), but the effect was insignificant and not as large as that imposed by the interpreting experience. The findings indicate that more practice of verbal switches may predict better non-verbal switching abilities, and that the underlying cause of bilingual advantages probably lies in the processing immediacy of an additional language which is definitely more demanding than that of a single language.

 

References

  • Dong, Y., & Li, P. The cognitive science of bilingualism. Language and Linguistic Compass, 9(1):1-13, 2015
  • Dong, Y., & Xie, Z. Contributions of second language proficiency and interpreting experience to cognitive control differences among young adult bilinguals. Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 26(5):506-519, 2014.
  • Valian, V. Bilingualism and cognition. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 18(1):3-24, 2015.
  • Woumans, E., Ceuleers, E., Van der Linden, L., Szmalec, A., & Duyck, W. Language control in bilinguals and interpreters. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 2015.
  • Yudes, C., Macizo, P., & Bajo, T. The influence of expertise in simultaneous interpreting on non-verbal executive processes. Frontiers in Psychology, 2011.