Gigi Luk, Eric De Sa, Ellen Bialystok
Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 14 (4),
2011, 588-595
Research Questions
·
Is there a relationship between the age of onset
of bilingualism and cognition? Specifically, is their executive control
different?
Participants
·
157 university students in Canada
Methods and Tools
·
“The onset age of bilingualism was defined as
the age at which the bilinguals began using both languages on a daily basis” (589)
o “Early bilingual”: Before age of 10
o
“Late”:
After 10
·
“Detailed language history questionnaire” (590)
·
“Monolinguals”: English only language; Bilingual
participants: A whole range of languages in addition to English (590)
·
Asked to self-assess how close their language
use was to a “native speaker” (591). I don’t know that this was used in the
analysis.
·
The Peabody Picture Vocabulary Task 3rd
edition
o
Tests receptive vocabulary
·
The Cattell Cultural Fair Intelligence Test
o
Tests nonverbal intelligence
·
The Spatial Span Subtest from the Wechsler
Memory Scale 3rd edition
o
Tests spatial working memory
·
The Flanker Task
o
Indicate the direction of a red chevron shape
among other black chevrons by pressing either the left or right mouse button
located on each side of the monitor.
o
Tests executive control
o
Reaction time and accuracy measured
§
Only trials with a correct response included in
reaction time analysis
Results
·
In all groups, reaction time to “congruent
trials” (where all the chevrons were pointed the same way) was faster than that
of “incongruent trials” (where the red chevron was pointed a different way)
·
Reaction time to incongruent trials compared
with control (with just the red chevron):
o
Early bilinguals showed the smallest cost
o
Late bilinguals and monolinguals were similar
(592)
·
Reaction time difference between congruent and
incongruent trials
o
Early bilinguals showed the smallest cost
o
Late bilinguals and monolinguals didn’t differ
(592)
·
“Onset age of active bilingualism correlated
negatively with English receptive vocabulary” as measured by the PPVT-III,
suggesting “that earlier onset of active bilingualism is associated with higher
performance in English receptive vocabulary” (592)
·
“A smaller flanker effect for those who had been
actively bilingual for a longer period of time” (592)
o
Flanker effect: Task takes longer in incongruent
trials rather than congruent trials: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eriksen_flanker_task
Discussion
·
“Bilinguals who had been actively using two
languages for most of their lives showed less interference on a flanker task
than did comparable monolinguals” (592)
·
“Participants who were less bilingual in that
they had been using two languages for only about half of their lives performed
more like monolinguals on the executive control task” (592)
·
“Earlier and continuing experience [with
bilingualism] conferring larger effects” (592)
·
They don’t know if this is caused by “AGE
OF ONSET” OR BY THE AMOUNT OF TIME THE LANGUAGE HAS BEEN USED in the
participants’ lives (593)
o
“In our view, both the continuity of the
bilingual experience over an extended period of time and an early age of
becoming bilingual contribute to the emergence of the outcomes on cognitive
control.” (593)
o
No “critical period,” since there was a
continuous correlation with age of acquisition and proficiency (593)
·
Age of acquisition and years as bilingual were
entangled;
In Sum…
·
Early bilingualism was more associated with
greater executive control as measured by the Flanker Test
·
Late bilinguals were more similar to
monolinguals than early bilinguals
·
The authors say there is a lack of support for a
“critical period” for learning a language, instead arguing the time speaking
the language is what matters.
