Bilingualism Flashcards
Facts
There are more bilinguals than monolinguals
o Knowing a second language changes the structure of your brain!
o 2 separate representations, 1 for each language
o more white matter in the brain
Simultaneous acquisition: No effect in cortical thickness
Later acquisition (People who learned language after age 5): Thicker cortex in inferior frontal gyrus
What does the article say?
Bilinguals are mental jugglers!
Parallel activation in listening, reading, and speaking
ignore irrelevant information
resolve conflict among competing alternatives
minimize the costs associated with task switching
o Bilingual advantage – people used to think bilingualism was bad for children. Bc see bilingual children have later developmental milestones. They catch up between 4 -5. Bilingual advantage is that they are better at measures of verbal and nonverbal intelligence. They can manage conflicting information (like stroop test). They are better at task switching. Better attention processors.
What is linguistic conflict?
o Linguistic conflict – trying to figure out what a word is in the other language when you know the word in the first language. Or walk into a room and don’t know which language to start with.
o Constant linguistic competition. Bike or fiets. They are mental jugglers.
2 Research papers about bilingualism
Bialystok et al. (2005): Older bilinguals outperform age- matched monolingual counterparts on the Simon Task and on other non-linguistic measures of inhibitory control.
Bialystok et al. (2007): Bilingualism delays the onset of Alzheimers-type dementia by four years. Language experience may provide protection to the brain.
FILL IN
o Simon test is the red, green press button slide.
Congruent Trials, Incongruent Trials
In slide and In article!!
Monolinguals have higher magnitude in the simon test as they age
Towers Task
Towers Task with 3 to 5 yos (look at slide)
• Each block is one apartment; each apartment has one
family
• Count the blocks in each tower
• Which apartment tower has more families living in it?
Bilingual children are better than their monolingual counterparts at recognizing
that the shorter tower has the larger number.
Is language part of our identity?
o Difference between individual and cultural/ societal bilingualism. We are living in city with societal bilingualism English and Spanish.
o If you don’t learn early on how to do math in a language then you will have a problem with that. Important for math skills in the other language.. Need to learn doing math in both languages.
Other advantages of bilingualism?
Older adults (80 yos) and immediate episodic memory
(look at slide?)
“Participants were instructed to orally report in English all of the pictures they remembered seeing, and to describe them in as much detail as possible, so that coders could match descriptions to individual pictures”
