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The influence of bilingualism on cognitive aging and dementia: competence, communication and context. Dr. Thomas H Bak, University of Edinburgh, Scotland The question whether bilingualism can influence cognitive functions in later life and even delay the onset of dementia has generated recently considerable controversy. I will argue that different disciplines are likely to approach this question […]
On the cross talk between bilingual language control and executive control Albert Costa (Pompeu Fabra U) Models of bilingual language control often hypothesized certain overlap with domain-general executive control mechanisms. However, the specific mechanisms that are common to these two cognitive domains are still not known. In this talk, I review several studies that have […]
Bilingualism transforms language, cognition, and the brain Judith F. Kroll (The Pennsylvania State University) There is a great deal of mythology about bilingualism. Some worry that children exposed to more than one language early in life will become confused and fail to become a fluent speaker of either language. Others think that language mixing produces […]
What cognitive processes are likely to be exercised by bilingualism and does this exercise lead to extra-linguistic cognitive benefits? Raymond M. Klein (Dalhousie University) The various situations encountered by bilingual individuals are considered in light of the cognitive processes that these situations might uniquely exercise. With these in hand we will consider whether this exercise is […]
Methodological Issues in Research on Bilingualism, Cognitive Aging, and Cognitive Reserve Laura Zahodne and Jennifer Manly Studies of the relationship between bilingualism and dementia have yielded discrepant results. This talk will explore four methodological issues that may help to explain these discrepancies, clarify our understanding of the relationship between bilingualism and cognitive function in older […]
What Is Reserve and How Do We Get It? Yaakov Stern, PhD The concept of reserve has been put forward to account for individual differences in susceptibility to age-related brain changes and pathologic changes, such as those that occur in Alzheimer’s disease. The concept of cognitive reserve suggests that the brain actively attempts to cope […]
Do bilingual children perform more efficiently in different experimental tasks than their monolingual peers? Klara Marton Studies on executive functions in bilingual children show mixed findings. Some authors report no group difference between bilingual and monolingual children in executive functions, such as attention control (e.g., Antón et al., 2014), whereas others show superior performance in […]
What Is (Are) Executive Function(s)? Insights From Individual Differences Research Naomi Friedman Executive functions are high-level cognitive processes that enable control over thoughts and actions through their regulation of lower-level processes. They are central to many areas of psychology, including research on psychopathology, development, aging, and bilingualism, to name a few. Yet there is still […]
Investigating grammatical processing in bilinguals: The case of morphological priming João Veríssimo & Harald Clahsen (Potsdam Research Institute for Multilingualism, Germany) Much previous work on the advantages and disadvantages of bilingualism has focussed on vocabulary or the processing of simple words. From a linguistic perspective, however, vocabulary is a rather peripheral aspect of the knowledge […]
Referring expressions and executive functions in child and adult bilinguals Antonella Sorace (University of Edinburgh) Reference tracking requires the language user to both infer appropriate pronoun-referent mappings and dynamically update the discourse model following a change of referent status. Recent research on the so-called ‘syntax-pragmatics interface’ (e.g. Sorace & Serratrice 2009; Sorace 2011; 2011; Chamorro, Sorace & Sturt 2015) shows […]
