The effect of childhood bilingualism on episodic and semantic memory tasks

Abstract

Kormi-Nouri, Moniri and Nilsson (2003) demonstrated that Swedish-Persian bilingual children recalled at a higher level than Swedish monolingual children, when they were tested using Swedish materials. The present study was designed to examine the bilingual advantage of children who use different languages in their everyday life but have the same cultural background and live in their communities in the same way as monolingual children. In four experiments, 488 monolingual and bilingual children were compared with regard to episodic and semantic memory tasks. In experiments 1 and 2 there were 144 boys and 144 girls in three school groups (aged 9-10 years, 13-14 years and 16-17 years) and in three language groups (Persian monolingual, Turkish-Persian bilingual, and Kurdish-Persian bilingual). In experiments 3 and 4, there were 200 male students in two school groups (aged 9-10 years and 16-17 years) and in two language groups (Persian monolingual and Turkish-Persian bilingual). In the episodic memory task, children learned sentences (experiments 1-3) and words (Experiment 4). Letter and category fluency tests were used as measures of semantic memory. To change cognitive demands in memory tasks, in Experiment 1, the integration of nouns and verbs within sentences was manipulated by the level of association between verb and noun in each sentence. At retrieval, a recognition test was used. In experiments 2 and 3, the organization between sentences was manipulated at encoding in Experiment 2 and at both encoding and retrieval in Experiment 3 through the use of categories among the objects. At retrieval, free recall or cued recall tests were employed. In Experiment 4, the bilingual children were tested with regard to both their first and their second language. In all four experiments, a positive effect of bilingualism was found on episodic and semantic memory tasks; the effect was more pronounced for older than younger children. The bilingual advantage was not affected by changing cognitive demands or by using first/second language in memory tasks. The present findings support the cross-language interactivity hypothesis of bilingual advantage.

Developmental differences in episodic memory across school ages: evidence from enacted events performed by self and others

“…In the free recall test, which is a more effortful task, both semantic integration (wellintegrated items) and episodic integration (SPT encoding) are required for good memory performance. In cued recall and recognition tests, which are less effortful tasks, only the effect of enactment improves memory performance (Kormi-Nouri, 1995;Kormi-Nouri & Nilsson, 1998;Kormi-Nouri et al, 2008).…”

“…That is, half of the participants in each of the encoding conditions received real objects, whereas the other half were instructed to act on an imaginary object control the effect of the object's presence. This was based on the results of previous studies in action memory that showed some differences between adult and child populations with respect to the presence of an object (Kormi-Nouri, 2000;Kormi-Nouri, et al, 2008). Some studies of adults have shown that there is no significant difference among participants' performances when either real objects or imaginary objects are presented (Kormi-Nouri, 2000), whereas, in children, SPTs with real objects corresponded to a higher performance than imaginary objects (Kormi-Nouri et al, 2008).…”

“…This was based on the results of previous studies in action memory that showed some differences between adult and child populations with respect to the presence of an object (Kormi-Nouri, 2000;Kormi-Nouri, et al, 2008). Some studies of adults have shown that there is no significant difference among participants' performances when either real objects or imaginary objects are presented (Kormi-Nouri, 2000), whereas, in children, SPTs with real objects corresponded to a higher performance than imaginary objects (Kormi-Nouri et al, 2008). Therefore, we controlled this issue by presenting both real and imaginary objects such that half of the participants in each of the encoding conditions received real objects, and the other half were instructed to act on an imaginary object.…”

Výkon bilingválnych jednotlivcov pri psychodiagnostickom vyšetrení kognitívnych funkcií v ich prvom a druhom jazyku

“…(Carr, Castel, & Knowlton, 2015;Hülür, Hertzog, Pearman, & Gerstorf, 2015, Lee, Ning, & Goh, 2014. Kormi-Nouri et al (2008) poukázali na lepšiu sémantickú i epizodickú pamäť bilingválnych v porovnaní s monolingválnymi, pričom táto výhoda sa ukázala v oboch jazykoch dvojjazyčných. Toto zistenie sa v našom výskume nepotvrdilo.…”

Novel word retention in bilingual and monolingual speakers

“…According to the revised hierarchical model (Kroll and Stewart, 1994; Kroll et al, 2010), lexical connections between the two languages in bilinguals are linked to common conceptual memory representations; and the connections to conceptual memory depend on bilinguals' L1 and L2 experiences and knowledge. In the same vein, evidence regarding bilinguals' language knowledge in two languages, bilinguals' episodic memory, and their semantic memory (e.g., Francis, 1999; Kormi-Nouri et al, 2003, 2008, 2012; Sheng et al, 2006, 2013; Bialystok and Feng, 2009) suggests that bilinguals differ from monolinguals in how they encode, retain, and organize words.…”