The Impact of Early Bilingualism on Face Recognition Processes

Abstract

Early linguistic experience has an impact on the way we decode audiovisual speech in face-to-face communication. The present study examined whether differences in visual speech decoding could be linked to a broader difference in face processing. To identify a phoneme we have to do an analysis of the speaker’s face to focus on the relevant cues for speech decoding (e.g., locating the mouth with respect to the eyes). Face recognition processes were investigated through two classic effects in face recognition studies: the Other-Race Effect (ORE) and the Inversion Effect. Bilingual and monolingual participants did a face recognition task with Caucasian faces (own race), Chinese faces (other race), and cars that were presented in an Upright or Inverted position. The results revealed that monolinguals exhibited the classic ORE. Bilinguals did not. Overall, bilinguals were slower than monolinguals. These results suggest that bilinguals’ face processing abilities differ from monolinguals’. Early exposure to more than one language may lead to a perceptual organization that goes beyond language processing and could extend to face analysis. We hypothesize that these differences could be due to the fact that bilinguals focus on different parts of the face than monolinguals, making them more efficient in other race face processing but slower. However, more studies using eye-tracking techniques are necessary to confirm this explanation.

Bilingualism shapes the other race effect

“…While we did find a strong correlation between the ORE and holistic perception, we did not find any link between the latter variable and bilingualism. This suggests distinct influences of both holistic perception of other race faces and bilingualism in shaping the ORE. Taken together, our findings confirm recent suggestions in the literature (Kandel et al, 2016) that the ORE and bilingualism are indeed linked. It would seem that in addition to general experience with other race faces (Hancock & Rhodes, 2008;Rhodes, et al, 2009) and face training paradigms (Goldstein & Chance, 1985;Heron-Delaney, et al, 2011;Sangrigoli, Pallier, Argenti, Ventureyra, & De Schonen, 2005), the mere acquisition of a second language, even if it is not one associated with the faces of other races, can also reduce the ORE.…”

“…While recent work has suggested that bilinguals do not exhibit an ORE (Kandel et al, 2016), earlier work has indicated that they do (e.g., Blais et al, 2008;McKone et al, 2012). We have shown here that while bilinguals do exhibit an ORE, the magnitude of this effect is modulated by an ORE, thus indicating that high bilingual proficiency is not sufficient to completely abolish 252 this effect.…”

“…Similarly, it has been suggested that the other race effect (ORE; Golby, Gabrieli, 65 Chiao, & Eberhardt, 2001;Kelly et al, 2007) may also be altered by the presence of a second 66 language. Whereas monolinguals exhibited a classic ORE by more accurately identifying faces 67 from their own race over other races, bilinguals did not (Kandel et al, 2016). This finding, 68 however, is not equivocal, with a number of other studies having found examples of presumably 69 bilingual Chinese individuals, who are studying at universities in English speaking countries, still 70 exhibiting an ORE (Blais et al, 2008;Hancock & Rhodes, 2008;McKone et al, 2012;Rhodes et 71 al., 2009) albeit possibly one smaller in magnitude (Herzmann, Willenbockel, Tanaka, & Curran, 72 2011).…”

“…Figure 1 shows the accuracy scores across the three tests, with our Chinese participants unsurprisingly recognising Chinese faces better than the two sets of Caucasian faces. Prior work has suggested that bilingualism abolishes the ORE (Kandel et al, 2016). To examine whether this was the case in our bilingual sample, we performed an ANOVA on accuracy rates across the three face memory tests to reveal significant differences between the tasks [F(2,58) = 33.23, MSE = 553, p < .001, η² = .53].…”

SUBTLEX-CAT: Subtitle word frequencies and contextual diversity for Catalan

“…Hence, virtually all Catalan speakers are bilinguals of Catalan and Spanish. Due to the particularities of this population-they are highly proficient bilinguals who commonly acquire both languages during early childhood and live immersed in both languages-it has been the focus of interest of a large number of psycholinguistic studies dealing with topics including bilingual memory (e.g., Ferré, Sánchez-Casas, & Guasch, 2006;Guasch, Sánchez-Casas, Ferré, & García-Albea, 2008Moldovan, Demestre, Ferré, & Sánchez-Casas, 2016); parallel activation of languages in bilinguals (e.g., Comesaña et al, 2015;Guasch, Ferré, & Haro, 2017); emotional processing in the two languages (e.g., Ferré, Anglada-Tort, & Guasch, 2018;Ferré, García, Fraga, Sánchez-Casas, & Molero, 2010;Ferré, Sánchez-Casas, & Fraga, 2013); the linguistic, cognitive, and neural consequences of bilingualism (e.g., Branzi, Calabria, Boscarino, & Costa, 2016;Calabria, Branzi, Marne, Hernández, & Costa, 2015;Kandel et al, 2016;Martin et al, 2013;Rodríguez-Pujadas et al, 2013); and language deterioration in demented bilinguals (e.g., Calabria et al, 2017;Calabria, Marne, Romero-Pinel, Juncadella, & Costa, 2014), among others.…”