Working memory and multilingualism: balanced language proficiency predicts verbal working memory

Espi-Sanchis, Gabriel; Cockcroft, Kate

doi:10.1080/13670050.2021.1997901

Cited by 4 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 48 publications

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“…The bilingual participants presented a consistent advantage in WM tasks. The advantage of balanced bilingualism in WM tasks was also documented by Blom et al (2014), who found that bilingual proficiency predicts the performance level of bilingual children in a backward digit recall task (see also Espi-Sanchis & Cockcroft, 2022). Filipović (2020) found a bilingual advantage for recall memory among skilled and balanced bilinguals.…”

Section: Balanced Bilinguals Advantagementioning

confidence: 71%

Exploring the Production Effect in Memory Reveals a Balanced Bilingual Advantage

Schwell,

Icht,

Reznick

et al. 2024

Experimental Psychology

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There is evidence suggesting that bilingual individuals demonstrate an advantage over monolinguals in performing various tasks related to memory and executive functions. The characteristics of this bilingual advantage are not unanimously agreed upon in the literature, and some even doubt it exists. The heterogeneity of the bilingual population may explain this inconsistency. Hence, it is important to identify different subgroups of bilinguals and characterize their cognitive performance. The current study focuses on the production effect, a well-established memory phenomenon, in bilingual young adults differing in their English and Hebrew proficiency levels, and the possible balanced bilingual advantage. The aims of this study are (1) to evaluate the production effect in three groups of bilingual participants: English-dominant bilinguals, Hebrew-dominant bilinguals, and balanced bilinguals, and (2) to examine whether memory advantage depends on varying degrees of bilingualism. One hundred twenty-one bilingual young adults who speak English and Hebrew at different levels participated. All learned lists of familiar words, in English and Hebrew, half by reading aloud and half by silent reading, followed by free recall tests. As expected, a production effect (better memory for aloud words than for silent words) was found for all groups in both languages. Balanced bilinguals remembered more words than did dominant participants, demonstrating a memory advantage in both languages. These findings support the hypothesis that the presence of cognitive advantage in bilingualism depends on the acquisition of a good proficiency level in each of the languages, with direct implications for family language policy and bilingual education.

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Section: Balanced Bilinguals Advantagementioning

confidence: 71%

Exploring the Production Effect in Memory Reveals a Balanced Bilingual Advantage

Schwell,

Icht,

Reznick

et al. 2024

Experimental Psychology

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“…Such cognitive control may be heightened in individuals living in highly linguistically diverse contexts such as South Africa, explaining why we did not observe group differences in IC. In future studies, it would be beneficial to evaluate the role of other (continuous) language factors, such as dominance, English age-of-acquisition, degree of exposure to languages within the ambient context and so forth, since some of these factors have been found to be determinants of executive control and/or comprehension ability in multilingual South Africans (Espi-Sanchis & Cockcroft, 2021;Cockcroft, Wigdorowitz & Liversagem, 2019;Palane & Howie, 2020).…”

Section: Inhibitory Control In High-level Listening Comprehensionmentioning

confidence: 99%

High-level listening comprehension in advanced English as a second language: Effects of the first language and inhibitory control

Wigdorowitz

Pérez²,

Tsimpli³

2023

Bilingualism

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English is imposed as the language of instruction in multiple linguistically diverse societies where there is more than one official language. This might have negative educational consequences for people whose first language (L1) is not English. To investigate this, 47 South Africans with advanced English proficiency but different L1s (L1-English vs. L1-Zulu) were evaluated in their listening comprehension ability. Specifically, participants listened to narrative texts in English which prompted an initial inference followed by a sentence containing an expected inference or an unexpected but plausible concept, assessing comprehension monitoring. A final question containing congruent or incongruent information in relation to the text information followed, assessing the revision process. L1-English participants were more efficient at monitoring and revising their listening comprehension. Furthermore, individual differences in inhibitory control were associated with differences in revision. Results show that participants’ L1 appears to supersede their advanced English proficiency on highly complex listening comprehension.

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The relationships between balanced-bilingual proficiency, executive function, and rational thinking: a dissociative finding

Lin,

Chang,

Shih

2024

International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism

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Working memory and multilingualism: balanced language proficiency predicts verbal working memory

Cited by 4 publications

References 48 publications

Exploring the Production Effect in Memory Reveals a Balanced Bilingual Advantage

Exploring the Production Effect in Memory Reveals a Balanced Bilingual Advantage

High-level listening comprehension in advanced English as a second language: Effects of the first language and inhibitory control

The relationships between balanced-bilingual proficiency, executive function, and rational thinking: a dissociative finding

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