Previous research suggests that bilinguals demonstrate superior cognitive control processes than monolinguals. The goal of the current investigation was to examine whether this “bilingual advantage” is observed in a language processing task that requires inhibition, i.e., lexical ambiguity processing. Monolingual and bilingual participants read sentences that biased the reading of a terminal homonym toward the subordinate or dominant reading (e.g., The doctor asked her to step onto the scale.). A relatedness judgment was made on target words that were related to the contextually appropriate (e.g., balance) or inappropriate meaning (e.g., skin), or unrelated to either meaning (e.g., shoe) while electrophysiological recording took place. The results revealed subtle processing differences between monolinguals and bilinguals that were evident in electrophysiological measures, but not in behavioral measures. These findings suggest that monolinguals rely on context to access the contextually appropriate meaning of a homonym to a greater extent than bilinguals, while bilinguals demonstrate simultaneous activation of both meanings.

Semantic richness refers to the amount of semantic information that a lexical item possesses. An important measure of semantic richness is the number of related senses that a word has (e.g., TABLE meaning a piece of furniture, a table of contents, to lay aside for future discussion, etc.). We measured electrophysiological response to lexical items with many and few related senses in monolingual English-speaking young adults. Participants performed lexical decision on each item. Overall, high-sense words elicited shorter response latencies and smaller N400 amplitudes than low-sense words. These results constitute further evidence of the importance of semantic richness in lexical processing, and provide evidence that processing of multiple related senses begins as early as 200 milliseconds after stimulus onset.

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ObjectiveA pilot study to determine the feasibility of recruiting patients with MCI to test for cognitive interventions.MethodThirty patients with amnestic MCI were to be divided into two intervention arms and one control group. Participants went to local sites and completed brain training for one hour three times per week for nine weeks. Outcome measures were: recruitment, computer abilities, compliance, task performance, neuropsychological tests, and electroencephalography.ResultsAfter six months, only 20 participants had been recruited. Seventeen were allocated to one of the two intervention groups. Compliance was good and computer skills were not an obstacle. Participants improved their abilities in the modules, but there were no statistically significant changes on neuropsychological tests or EEG.ConclusionsRecruitment of MCI participants for extensive cognitive intervention is challenging, but achievable. This pilot study was not powered to detect clinical changes. Future trials should consider recruitment criteria, intervention duration, scheduling, and study location.