Bilingual Minds

Front 1

Similarities b/w bilingual & monolingual infants

Back 1

-Until 6 months old, no detectable difference in perception of phonetic contrasts by infants in monolingual and bilingual environments

-only diverging patterns once bilingual babies develop categorical distinctions fo rthe phonetic system in both languages and monolingual infants lose ability to detect contrasts outside of their 1 language

Front 2

Bilingual infants are more flexible learners

Back 2

-12 month old bilingual & monoolingual infants, shown 3--syllable combos each associated with a different response (like look right or to left to see a toy)

-monolingual babies could learn only one response but the bilingual babies could learn both

-bilingual babies have more flexible learning, explains how they can learn twice as much about language as monolingual children in the same amount time

Front 3

Differences in bilingual infant word learning strategies

Back 3

-bilingual children know significantly fewer words than monolingual

-there is a decline in the strategy of mapping an object to a word they hear in babies with more than one language, which is the heuristic for learning new words. This mapping cognitive strategy suffers for them bc they already know that objects can have more than one name

-also declines even more when they have more languages

Front 4

Differences in bilingual infants in lexical retrieval

Back 4

-Joint activation of 2 languages creates a need for selection in bilinguals --> must resolve competition not only from within-language alternatives (like semantic neighbors) but also from between-language alternatives

-therefore bilinguals take longer and make more errors than monolinguals on naming tasks

Front 5

Advantages to bilingualism (1) Inhibitory control

Back 5

-On tasks that ask participants to inhibit nonessential information, such as a testing to see if you can switch parameters for sorting cards by different dimensions (such as shape and color), bilinguals perform better than monolinguals. Monolinguals have difficulty overriding the habit set up in the first phase. This is likely because the constant need for bilinguals to inhibit the nonused language generalizes to more effective inhibition of -nonverbal information.

-Simon task --> participant views a red or green square, squares can appear either above relevant response keys (congruent) or above the other key (incongruent). Difference bw the conditions is called the Simon Effect, and it is much larger for monolinguals and especially older monolinguals. Bilingual advantage especially strong in older adults.

-Stroop effect

Front 6

Advantages to bilingualism (2) Task switching

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-the ability to move easily between two tasks, keeping two protocols simultaneously active. Task switching might come closest to the special processes bilinguals engage in as they switch between languages.

-Tasks that ask participants to classify items based on color or shape and then mixing those two classifications reveal that bilinguals are better at keeping track of the switching, just as they must do with languages.

Front 7

Advantages in bilingualism (3) working memory

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Experiments have illustrated that bilinguals show advantages in working memory. Tasks that involve increasing amounts of working memory demand show that bilinguals perform better than monolinguals, even across the ages.

Front 8

Bilingual advantage across the lifespan

Back 8

- very early appearance of bilingual advantage → 7 month old infants were preverbal but had been exposed to 2 languages. Infants had to inhibit first learned response (looking for a puppet in response to a speech stimulus or visual pattern) and switch to a new response. Bilingual infants learned to switch to the other square but monolingual infants did not

-• Bilingual advantage shown in the Simon task in 5 year olds, but absent in 20 year olds, but present AGAIN in middle aged and older adults → but cognition is most robust at that time, so bilingualism does need to give a boost during young adulthood (20’s)

Front 9

Neural basis

Back 9

• Seemingly paradoxical findings: it requires more processing (takes longer) to switch into the easier task than it does to switch into the more difficult task.
o Explanation: in order to name in L2, the easier task (naming in L1) must be strongly inhibited, and it takes more time to reinstate the easier task, producing an asymmetry in the naming cost

Front 10

neuroanatomical correlates of bilingual operations

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• prefrontal cortex→ executive functions, decision-making, response selection, response inhibition, working memory
• anterior cingulate cortex → attention, conflict monitoring, error detection
• basal ganglia, caudate → language selection, set switching, language planning, lexical selection
• inferior parietal lobe→ maintenance of representations, working memory

Front 11

Experiments to know

Back 11

--infants as young as 4 months can discriminate 2 languages from different rhythmical classes by watching silent talking faces
• early bilingual experience allows infants to maintain sensitivity to language differences in visual speech

-4 month old Spanish-catalan bilingual infants discriminate Spanish from catalan as well as monolingual infants, suggesting that “familiar” versus “different” distinction is not essential for discrimination for bilingual infants