Both internal factors (e.g., nonverbal intelligence) and external factors (e.g., input quantity) are claimed to affect the rate of children's vocabulary development. However, it remains an open question whether these variables work similarly on bilingual children's dual language learning. The current paper examined this issue on 805 Singapore children (4 years, 1 month to 5 years, 8 months) who are learning English (societal language) and an ethnic language (Mandarin/Malay/Tamil). Singapore is a bilingual society; however, there is an inclination for English use at home in recent years, resulting in a discrepancy of input between English and ethnic languages in many families. In this study, internal and external factors were examined comprehensively with standardized tests and a parental questionnaire. Regression analysis was used to address the questions. There were statistically significant differences in language input quantity, quality, and output between English and ethnic language learning environments. Singapore children are learning English in an input-rich setting while learning their ethnic language in a comparatively input-poor setting. Multiple regressions revealed that while both sets of factors explained lexical knowledge in each language, the relative contribution is different for English and ethnic languages: internal factors explained more variance in English language vocabulary, whereas external factors were more important in explaining ethnic language knowledge. We attribute this difference to a threshold effect of external factors based on the critical mass hypothesis and call for special attention to learning context (input-rich vs. input-poor settings) for specific bilingual language studies.

Advances in neuroimaging techniques and analytic methods have led to a proliferation of studies investigating the impact of bilingualism on the cognitive and brain systems in humans. Lately, these findings have attracted much interest and debate in the field, leading to a number of recent commentaries and reviews. Here, we contribute to the ongoing discussion by compiling and interpreting the plethora of findings that relate to the structural, functional, and connective changes in the brain that ensue from bilingualism. In doing so, we integrate theoretical models and empirical findings from linguistics, cognitive/developmental psychology, and neuroscience to examine the following issues: (1) whether the language neural network is different for first (dominant) versus second (nondominant) language processing; (2) the effects of bilinguals' executive functioning on the structure and function of the “universal” language neural network; (3) the differential effects of bilingualism on phonological, lexical-semantic, and syntactic aspects of language processing on the brain; and (4) the effects of age of acquisition and proficiency of the user's second language in the bilingual brain, and how these have implications for future research in neurolinguistics.

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Personality disorders (PD) are usually treated with face-to-face sessions and/or digital mental health services. Among many schools of therapies, schema therapy stands out because rather than simply targeting the symptoms of PD, it cordially targets the cause of PD and heals the early maladaptive schema, thus is exceptionally good at soothing emotional disturbances before enacting cognitive restructuring, resulting in long-term efficacy. However, according to Piaget’s genetic epistemology, the unmet needs lie in the fact that the schemata that determine the adaptive behavior can only be formed in the interaction with the real world that the patient is living in and reconsolidated by the feedback from the object world upon the patient’s newly-formed behavior. Therefore, in order to reshape the patient’s schema modes to support adaptive behavior and regain emotional regulation capabilities of the healthy adult, one may have to reconstruct the object world surrounding the patient. Metaverse, the bestowed successor to the Internet with the cardinal feature of “the sense of full presence,” can become a powerful tool to reconstruct a new object world for the patient with the prescription of a psychotherapist, so as to transform the treatment techniques in schema therapy into the natural autobiographical experiences of patients in the new object world, thus gradually reshape the patient’s schema modes that can ultimately result in an adaptive, and more inclusive, interaction with the real world. This work describes the underlying theory, the mechanism, the process, and ethical considerations of such promising technology for the not-too-far future.

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