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When pursuing a controversial socio-scientific issue, readers are expected to construct balanced representations that include overlapping and opposing information. However, readers' mental representations are often biased towards their prior beliefs. Previous research on such text-belief consistency effects have been conducted mostly in monolingual contexts. The present study investigated whether document language, as a source characteristic, moderates text-belief consistency effects at the situation-model and text-base representation levels. Eighty-seven bilingual readers-selected from a larger initial sample-read two documents on the global spread of English. The documents were either presented in participants' first (Persian) and second (English) languages, or one was presented in Persian and the other one in English. A recognition task was used to assess situation-model strength and text-base strength. Overall, participants built stronger situation models for the belief-consistent information as opposed to belief-inconsistent information. However, document language moderated the text-belief consistency effect. When both texts were presented in English, the text-belief consistency effect was smaller than when both texts were presented in Persian. For the combination of English and Persian texts, the text-belief consistency effect was enlarged when the belief-consistent text was presented in English and the belief-inconsistent text in Persian but disappeared when the text-belief consistent text was presented in Persian and the belief-inconsistent text in English. These results suggest that document language can serve as a strong credibility cue that can eliminate belief effects, at least when the document language and the controversial issue are inherently related., Author(s): Mohammad N. Karimi [sup.1] , Tobias Richter [sup.2] Author Affiliations: (1) grid.412265.6, 0000 0004 0406 5813, Department of Foreign Languages, Kharazmi University, , No. 43, South Mofatteh Ave., Tehran, [...]

Purpose: The language that children hear early in life is associated with their speech-language outcomes. This line of research relies on naturalistic observations of children's language input, often captured with daylong audio recordings. However, the large quantity of data that daylong recordings generate requires novel analytical tools to feasibly parse thousands of hours of naturalistic speech. This study outlines a new approach to efficiently process and sample from daylong audio recordings made in two bilingual communities, Spanish-English in the United States and Quechua-Spanish in Bolivia, to derive estimates of children's language exposure. Method: We employed a general sampling with replacement technique to efficiently estimate two key elements of children's early language environments: (a) proportion of child-directed speech (CDS) and (b) dual language exposure. Proportions estimated from random sampling of 30-s segments were compared to those from annotations over the entire daylong recording (every other segment), as well as parental report of dual language exposure. Results: Results showed that approximately 49 min from each recording or just 7% of the overall recording was required to reach a stable proportion of CDS and bilingual exposure. In both speech communities, strong correlations were found between bilingual language estimates made using random sampling and all-day annotation techniques. A strong association was additionally found for CDS estimates in the United States, but this was weaker at the Bolivian site, where CDS was less frequent. Dual language estimates from the audio recordings did not correspond well to estimates derived from parental report collected months apart. Conclusions: Daylong recordings offer tremendous insight into children's daily language experiences, but they will not become widely used in developmental research until data processing and annotation time substantially decrease. We show that annotation based on random sampling is a promising approach to efficiently estimate ambient characteristics from daylong recordings that cannot currently be estimated via automated methods., In North America, the quantity and characteristics of the language input children receive can predict later language outcomes, such as vocabulary size and lexical processing speed (Hart & Risley, 1995; [...]

Purpose: A wealth of studies has assessed the diagnostic value of the nonword repetition task (NWRT) for the detection of developmental language disorder (DLD) in the clinical context of speech and language therapy, first in monolingual children and, more recently, in bilingual children. This review article reviews this literature systematically and conducts a meta-analysis on the discriminative power of this type of task in both populations. Method: Three databases were used to select articles based on keyword combinations, which were then reviewed for relevance and methodological rigor based on internationally recognized checklists. From an initial pool of 488 studies, 46 studies were selected for inclusion in the systematic review, and 35 of these studies could be included in a meta-analysis. Results: Most of the articles report significant discrimination between children with and without DLD in both monolingual and bilingual contexts, and the meta-analysis shows a large mean effect size. Three factors (age of the child, linguistic status, and language specificity of the task) yielded enough quantitative data for further exploration. Subgroups analysis shows variance in effect sizes, but none of the three factors, neither their interactions, were significant in a metaregression. We discuss how other, less explored factors (e.g., nature of the stimuli, scoring methods) could also contribute to differences in results. Sensitivity and specificity analyses reported in 33 studies confirmed that, despite possible effect size differences, the diagnostic accuracy of the NWRT is generally near thresholds considered to be discriminatory. It generally increases when it is combined with other tasks (e.g., parental questionnaire). Conclusions: This review indicates that the NWRT is a promising diagnostic tool to identify children with DLD in monolingual and bilingual contexts with a large mean effect size. However, it seems necessary to choose the precise NWRT materials based on the children's language background and to complement the assessment sessions with other tools in order to ensure diagnosis and to obtain complete language profile of the child. Supplemental Material: https://doi.org/10.23641/asha. 15152370, The ability to adequately repeat nonwords relies on many processes such as auditory perception, phonological encoding and assembly, storage of phonological representations, motor planning, and the ability to articulate (Coady [...]

Purpose: This study examined the influences of bilingualism and developmental language disorder (DLD) on nonverbal processing speed. DLD is associated with slower processing speed, but the extent to which slowing extends to bilingual populations is not established. The possible presence of bilingual cognitive effects could also lead to faster processing speed among bilingual children. Method: Participants included 108 children of ages 6-8 years, including 56 Spanish-English bilinguals (29 with DLD and 27 with typical development) and 52 English-only monolinguals (25 with DLD and 27 with typical development). Language testing (in both languages for bilingual children) was combined with parent and school report to classify children as having DLD or typical language development. Children with attentiondeficit/hyperactivity disorder were excluded from the sample. Reaction time from a choice visual detection task was used to index nonverbal processing speed. Results: Children with DLD demonstrated slower processing speed than their typically developing peers, whereas bilingual children demonstrated faster processing speed than monolinguals. The effects of dLd and bilingualism did not interact. Conclusions: This study replicates prior findings of slowed processing speed among children with DLD in both monolingual and bilingual children. Evidence of faster processing speed among bilingual children contributes to the complex literature surrounding the circumstances of bilingual cognitive effects. Supplemental Material: https://doi.org/10.23641/asha. 15138747, Processing speed is a basic cognitive construct that may have a significant impact on language learning. Conversely, it is also possible that language learning experiences affect an individual's processing speed. [...]

The main goal of the present study was to determine whether the probability of correct and illusory recall of word lists varies with participants' frequency of memorization and recitation practice. The ancillary goal was to determine whether the concurrent presentation of Arabic words and English translations would influence correct and illusory recall rates relative to monolingual presentation. The words in each list were selected to gravitate around a theme word, which was never presented. In this procedure, recall of the theme word was considered prima facie evidence of an illusory memory. Participants were Arabic-English bilingual speakers from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). No effects of bilingual presentation on correct and illusory recall were observed in Experiment 1, which relied on lists developed in the United States for monolingual English speakers, and in Experiment 3, which relied on culturally appropriate lists. However, bilingual presentation reduced generic semantic intrusions in Experiment 1. Participants' illusory recall rates were lower than those of published norms gathered from English-speaking monolingual participants. In Experiment 1, generic semantic intrusions declined as the breadth of participants' recitation practice increased. No other significant correlations were found between memory indices and performance or sentiment measures of rote rehearsal. The implications of the finding that a didactic and religious practice taught to KSA students from an early age has little impact on the retention of verbal information are discussed. KEYWORDS: memory, bilingualism, accuracy, One topic in the scholarly literature on human cognition that has captured the interest of academics and laypersons alike is that of illusory memories. As a result, it is not [...]

Purpose: The study explores referential cohesion in the narratives of bilingual preschool children with typical language development (TLD) and with specific language impairment (SLI). Referential cohesion requires integration of multiple discourse factors and is expected to pose a challenge for children with bilingual SLI due to weak proficiency in both languages. Method: Narratives were elicited from 45 bilinguals speaking Russian as the home language (L1) and Hebrew as the societal language (L2; 15 with SLI), 20 Hebrew-speaking monolinguals (10 with SLI), and 20 Russian-speaking monolinguals (10 with SLI) using a story retelling procedure. Bilinguals were tested in both languages. Analyses examined the effect of impairment (SLI vs. TLD) in bilinguals and monolinguals. Language effects were examined in cross-language comparisons of bilinguals (L1 vs. L2) and in differences between monolingual groups (Russian vs. Hebrew speakers) for the use of referential expressions. Results: Bilingual children with SLI used a higher proportion of pronouns for character introduction and had fewer pronouns, which have been described as 'adequate' (Colozzo & Whitely, 2014) than bilingual children with TLD. No language effect emerged for bilinguals, who performed similarly in their L1 and L2, but a significant cross-linguistic difference emerged in the monolingual data: Russian-speaking children mainly used nouns to introduce and maintain characters, whereas Hebrew-speaking children mainly used pronouns for introduction and maintenance of characters. Conclusion: The difficulty of children with SLI in creating a referential connection between a pronoun and a noun phrase is discussed in light of the interaction of local and global processes in narratives, which is shown to be weaker in children with SLI., The current study investigates referential cohesion in narratives of bilingual children with typical language development (TLD) and with specific language impairment (SLI). The study emerged from observations of how bilingual [...]

Purpose: Performance on the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), among the most widely used global screens of adult cognitive status, is affected by demographic variables including age, education, and ethnicity. This study extends prior research by examining the specific effects of bilingualism on MMSE performance. Method: Sixty independent community-dwelling monolingual and bilingual adults were recruited from eastern and western regions of the United States in this cross-sectional group study. Independent sample t tests were used to compare 2 bilingual groups (Spanish-English and Asian Indian-English) with matched monolingual speakers on the MMSE, demographically adjusted MMSE scores, MMSE item scores, and a nonverbal cognitive measure. Regression analyses were also performed to determine whether language proficiency predicted MMSE performance in both groups of bilingual speakers. Results: Group differences were evident on the MMSE, on demographically adjusted MMSE scores, and on a small subset of individual MMSE items. Scores on a standardized screen of language proficiency predicted a significant proportion of the variance in the MMSE scores of both bilingual groups. Conclusions: Bilingual speakers demonstrated distinct performance profiles on the MMSE. Results suggest that supplementing the MMSE with a language screen, administering a nonverbal measure, and/or evaluating item-based patterns of performance may assist with test interpretation for this population., The Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE; Folstein, Folstein, & McHugh, 1975), originally published in 1975 to evaluate cognitive functions in psychiatric patients, was the first broadly used standardized brief screen of [...]

Purpose: The purpose of this study was twofold: First, we replicated in a new sample our previous findings that a culturally and linguistically responsive (CLR) bilingual approach for English vocabulary instruction for preschool Latino dual language learners was effective. Subsequently, we investigated whether the positive effect of CLR instruction varies as a function of individual child characteristics, including baseline vocabulary levels and gender. Method: Using a randomized pretest-posttest follow-up group design, we first replicated our previous study (N = 42) with a new sample by randomly assigning 35 Spanish-speaking Latino preschoolers to a CLR bilingual group or an English-only group. The preschoolers received small-group evidence-informed shared readings targeting 30 English words 3 times a week for 5 weeks in their preschools. Vocabulary outcomes were measured using both standardized and researcher-developed measures. We subsequently conducted further studies with the combined sample size of 77 children to examine the variability in intervention effects related to child gender and baseline vocabulary levels. Results: The direct replication study confirmed findings of our earlier work suggesting that the CLR bilingual approach promoted greater gains in L1 and L2 vocabulary than in an English-only approach. The extension studies revealed that the effect of the CLR bilingual vocabulary approach on English and Spanish vocabulary outcomes was not impacted by gender or vocabulary status at baseline. Conclusion: This study provides additional evidence of the benefits of strategically combining L1 and L2 for vocabulary instruction over an English-only approach. Our findings also suggest that preschool Latino dual language learners can benefit from a bilingual vocabulary instructional approach regardless of gender or baseline vocabulary levels in L1., The number of Latino children enrolled in public schools in the United States is projected to increase by 33% between 2011 and 2022, compared to a decrease of 6% for [...]

Purpose: This study assessed home and community language proficiency in Spanish-English bilingual university students to investigate whether the vocabulary gap reported in studies of bilingual children persists into adulthood. Method: Sixty-five early bilinguals (mean age = 21 years) were assessed in English and Spanish vocabulary and verbal reasoning ability using subtests of the Woodcock-Munoz Language Survey-Revised (Schrank & Woodcock, 2009). Their English scores were compared to 74 monolinguals matched in age and level of education. Participants also completed a background questionnaire. Results: Bilinguals scored below the monolingual control group on both subtests, and the difference was larger for vocabulary compared to verbal reasoning. However, bilinguals were close to the population mean for verbal reasoning. Spanish scores were on average lower than English scores, but participants differed widely in their degree of balance. Participants with an earlier age of acquisition of English and more current exposure to English tended to be more dominant in English. Conclusions: Vocabulary tests in the home or community language may underestimate bilingual university students' true verbal ability and should be interpreted with caution in high-stakes situations. Verbal reasoning ability may be more indicative of a bilingual's verbal ability., According to the U.S. Census Bureau (2015), some 350 different languages are spoken in U.S. homes. In 2015, the bureau estimated that 21% of the population speaks a language other [...]

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to determine whether the degree of dominance of Mandarin-English bilinguals' languages affects phonetic processing of tone content in their native language, Mandarin. Method: We tested 72 Mandarin-English bilingual college students with a range of language-dominance profiles in the 2 languages and ages of acquisition of English. Participants viewed 2 photographs at a time while hearing a familiar Mandarin word referring to 1 photograph. The names of the 2 photographs diverged in tone, vowels, or both. Word recognition was evaluated using clicking accuracy, reaction times, and an online recognition measure (gaze) and was compared in the 3 conditions. Results: Relative proficiency in English was correlated with reduced word recognition success in tone-disambiguated trials, but not in vowel-disambiguated trials, across all 3 dependent measures. This selective attrition for tone content emerged even though all bilinguals had learned Mandarin from birth. Lengthy experience with English thus weakened tone use. Conclusions: This finding has implications for the question of the extent to which bilinguals' 2 phonetic systems interact. It suggests that bilinguals may not process pitch information language-specifically and that processing strategies from the dominant language may affect phonetic processing in the nondominant language--even when the latter was learned natively., How does becoming bilingual affect sound processing in the native language? Compared with monolinguals, speech-sound processing is more complicated for speakers of two languages, who must process two different sets [...]

We examined the relationship between bilinguals' second language (L2) proficiency and their performance on a Stroop switching task, in which a color word (e.g., GREEN) appeared in a congruent ink color (e.g., green) or an incongruent ink color (e.g., red). Participants either read aloud the color word in the word-reading trials or named the ink color in the color-naming trials. Bilinguals who varied in L2 proficiency received 2 pure blocks, consisting of word-reading trials and color-naming trials, respectively, and 1 mixed block, consisting of intermixed word-reading and color-naming trials in an alternating-runs pattern. Comparing performance in nonswitch trials in the mixed block and the pure block provides a measure of global switch costs, whereas differences on switch trials and nonswitch trials in the mixed block reflect local switch costs. Bilinguals with higher L2 proficiency showed a marginally smaller Stroop effect in color naming, a smaller local switch cost in word reading (but not in color naming), and a smaller word-reading versus color-naming task set asymmetry in local switch costs. The latter result was consistent with the language switching finding that the L1/L2 switch cost asymmetry decreased as a function of bilinguals' L2 proficiency. Overall, the current findings support the facilitative role of L2 proficiency in bilinguals' task set switching: Those with higher L2 proficiency have better task set shifting and reconfiguration and updating abilities when they switch from a more difficult task set (color naming) to an easier task set (word reading) in a task-switching paradigm., Bilinguals have been reported to outperform monolinguals in tasks that demand attentional control. Given that bilinguals have two language systems (first and second languages, L1 and L2) and their communication [...]

The efficacy of keyword mnemonics in the learning of the non-dominant language in bilingual students was assessed. Of a total of 237 Compulsory Secondary Education students who participated in the study, 102 students used keyword mnemonics and 100 students used the rote method to learn the Spanish meaning of a list of 20 Galician words (the remaining 35 students generated the keywords to be used in the study). Moreover, each participant's image control was assessed. The recall of the meaning of words was greater in the keyword mnemonics group than in the rote learning group both in terms of receptive and productive recall. Moreover, participants with high image control had better recall than those with low image control ability. Keywords Keyword * Bilingualism * Imagery * Mnemonic * Learning, The keyword mnemonic is probably the most common technique used in languages learning, and the most researched in the literature. The term 'keyword mnemonics' was coined by Atkinson (1975) to [...]

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the impact of code-switching on Spanish/English bilingual listeners' speech recognition of English and Spanish words in the presence of competing speech-shaped noise. Method: Participants were Spanish/English bilingual adults (N = 27) who were highly proficient in both languages. Target stimuli were English and Spanish words presented in speech-shaped noise at a -14-dB signal-to-noise ratio. There were 4 target conditions: (a) English only, (b) Spanish only, (c) mixed English, and (d) mixed Spanish. In the mixed-English condition, 75% of the words were in English, whereas 25% of the words were in Spanish. The percentages were reversed in the mixed-Spanish condition. Results: Accuracy was poorer for the majority (75%) and minority (25%) languages in both mixed-language conditions compared with the corresponding single-language conditions. Results of a follow-up experiment suggest that this finding cannot be explained in terms of an increase in the number of possible response alternatives for each picture in the mixed-language condition relative to the single-language condition. Conclusions: Results suggest a cost of language mixing on speech perception when bilingual listeners alternate between languages in noisy environments. In addition, the cost of code-switching on speech recognition in noise was similar for both languages in this group of highly proficient Spanish/English bilingual speakers. Differences in response-set size could not account for the poorer results in the mixed-language conditions., The purpose of this study was to evaluate the impact of code-switching on highly proficient Spanish/ English bilingual listeners' speech recognition of English and Spanish words in the presence of [...]

Abstract The question as to whether there is a threshold value for input below which bilinguals do not achieve a monolingual-like development often arises. Although input does not seem to [...]

Abstract This commentary on the preceding six articles focuses on three issues concerning simultaneous and successive acquisition in early childhood which are addressed directly or indirectly in the contributions under [...]

Abstract This article focuses on the acquisition of copula verbs in Basque by Basque-Spanish bilinguals. Basque and Spanish have two copula verbs: izan and egon and ser and estar, respectively. [...]

Abstract This study compares lexical access and expressive and receptive vocabulary development in monolingual and bilingual toddlers. More specifically, the link between vocabulary size, production of translation equivalents, and lexical [...]

Experiments involving Spanish-English bilinguals reveal that this group inhibited the irrelevant homograph meaning when presented with word pairs that share the same orthography across languages. This inhibitory effect is seen to decay over time.

To investigate the possibility that knowledge of two languages influences the nature of semantic representations, bilinguals and monolinguals were compared in a word association task. In Experiment 1, bilinguals produced less typical responses relative to monolinguals when given cues with a very common associate (e.g., given bride, bilinguals said 'dress' instead of 'groom'). In Experiment 2, bilinguals produced responses as typical as those of monolinguals when given cues with high-frequency associates, but not when given cues with low-frequency associates. Bilinguals' responses were also affected, to a certain extent, by the cognate status of the stimulus word pairs: They were more similar to monolinguals' responses when the cue and its strongest associate were both cognates (e.g., minute--second is minuto--segundo in Spanish), as opposed to both being noncognates. Experiment 3 confirmed the presence of a robust frequency effect on bilingual but not on monolingual association responses. These findings imply a lexical locus for the bilingual effect on association responses and reveal the association task to be not quite as purely semantic as was previously assumed. doi: 10.3758/MC.38.6.723

For monolinguals, the Simon effect is eliminated when Simon task trials are intermixed with ones in which participants respond to the words left and right with incompatibly mapped keypresses. For bilingual Dutch/ French speakers, this result has been shown to occur when the words are in Dutch (their first and primary language), but not when they are in French. To dissociate the influence of order in which the languages were learned from whether the language was the primary one currently being used, we tested bilinguals who learned Spanish or Vietnamese as their first language but for whom English became their primary language. For both groups, the incompatible location-word mapping influenced performance of the Simon task when the words were in English but not when they were in the first language. These findings indicate that the strength of language, not order of acquisition, is the critical factor. doi: 10.3758/MC.38.6.713

The relationship between language and cognitive shifting in young children was examined. Specifically, second language experiences from infancy as well as individual differences in monolingual language experience may affect performances on the Dimensional Change Card Sort Task. 54 Japanese-French bilingual children and two groups of Japanese monolingual children participated (ns=18). One monolingual group was matched to the bilingual group on verbal ability and chronological age (VC monolingual group) and the other group was matched by chronological age but had higher verbal ability (C monolingual group). The results showed that the groups of children who were bilingual and monolingual with higher verbal ability performed the task significantly better than matched monolingual children. Language experiences may affect cognitive set shifting in young children. DOI 10.2466/03.10.28.PR0.107.4.68-78

Abstract The study investigates whether bilingualism has a measurable contribution to verbal and nonverbal creative performance. The performance of Russian--English bilingual and English monolingual college students residing in the USA [...]

Objectives. We investigated the relation between the language status of children and their behavioral and emotional well-being during their early school years. Methods. Behavioral and emotional well-being were drawn from teacher-reported data and included externalizing and internalizing behaviors. Three-level growth curve analyses were conducted on a subsample (n=12586) of children from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, kindergarten cohort, who originated from Asian countries. US-born, non-Hispanic White children served as the comparison group. Results. All children started with a similar level of internalizing and externalizing behaviors at kindergarten entry. The growth rate of problem behaviors was slowest in fluent bilingual and non-English-dominant bilingual children compared with White English-monolingual children. By contrast, problem behaviors increased at a significantly faster rate in non-English-monolingual children, who had the highest level of problem behaviors among all children by fifth grade. Conclusions. By fifth grade, fluent bilingual and non-English-dominant bilingual children had the lowest levels of internalizing and externalizing behaviors, whereas non-English-monolingual children had the highest levels of both behavior problems. Our data suggest emotional and behavioral benefits of being bilingual. (Am J Public Health. 2010;100:831-838. doi: 10.2105/AJPH.2009.174219)

In this study, we examined the intercorrelations among speech perception, metalinguistic (i.e., phonological and morphological) awareness, word reading, and vocabulary in a 1st language (LI) and a 2nd language (L2). Results from 3 age groups of Chinese--English bilingual children showed that speech perception was more predictive of reading and vocabulary in the L1 than L2. While morphological awareness uniquely predicted reading and vocabulary in both languages, phonological awareness played such a role after we controlled for morphological awareness only in the L2, which was alphabetic. LI speech perception and metalinguistic awareness predicted L2 word reading but not vocabulary, after we controlled for the corresponding L2 variables. Hence, there are both similarities and differences between the 2 languages in how the constructs are related. The differences are attributable to variations in language properties and learning contexts. Implications of the present results for an effective L2 learning program are discussed. Keywords: transfer, bilingual reading, vocabulary, phonological awareness, morphological awareness DOI: 10.1037/a0017850

In 3 experiments, a total of 151 monolingual and bilingual 6-year-old children performed similarly on measures of language and cognitive ability; however, bilinguals solved the global--local and trail-making tasks more rapidly than monolinguals. This bilingual advantage was found not only for the traditionally demanding conditions (incongruent global--local trials and Trails B) but also for the conditions not usually considered to be cognitively demanding (congruent global--local trials and Trails A). All the children performed similarly when congruent trials were presented in a single block or when perceptually simple stimuli were used, ruling out speed differences between the groups. The results demonstrate a bilingual advantage in processing complex stimuli in tasks that require executive processing components for conflict resolution, including switching and updating, even when no inhibition appears to be involved. They also suggest that simple conditions of the trail--making and global--local tasks involve some level of effortful processing for young children. Finally, the bilingual advantage in the trail-making task suggests that the interpretation of standardized measures of executive control needs to be reconsidered for children with specific experiences, such as bilingualism. Keywords: bilingualism, executive function, global--local task, trail-making task, inhibition DOI: 10.1037/a0015466

Whether words are or are not activated within the lexicon of the nonused language is an important question for accounts of bilingual word production. Prior studies have not led to conclusive results, either because alternative accounts could be proposed for their findings or because activation could have been artificially induced by the experimental paradigms. Moreover, previous data only involved target translations, and nothing is known about the activation of nontarget words in the nonused language. The picture-picture interference paradigm was used here, since it allowed the activation of nontarget words to be determined without showing stimuli that could artificially activate the nonused language. Proficient Spanish-Catalan speakers were presented with pairs of partially overlapping colored pictures and were instructed to name the green picture and ignore the red picture. In Experiment 1, distractor pictures with cognate names interfered more than distractor pictures with noncognate names. In Experiment 2, facilitation was observed when the names of the distractor pictures in the nonused language were phonologically related to the names of the target pictures. Overall, these results indicate that nontarget words are activated in the nonused language, at least in the case of proficient bilingual speakers. These results help researchers to constrain theories of bilingual lexical access. Keywords: bilingualism, speech production, lexical access, cognates DOI: 10.1037/a0017677

To date, studies have focused on the acquisition of alphabetic second languages in alphabetic first language (L1) users, demonstrating significant transfer effects. The present study examines the process from a reverse perspective, comparing logographic (Mandarin-Chinese) and alphabetic (English) L1 users in the acquisition of an artificial logographic script to determine whether similar language-specific advantageous transfer effects occurred. ChineseEnglish bilinguals, English-French bilinguals, and English monolingnals learned a small set of symbols (six nouns and six verbs) in an artificial logographic script. A lexical decision task on the artificial symbols revealed markedly faster response times in the Chinese-English bilinguals, indicating a logographic transfer effect suggestive of a language experience-specific advantage. A syntactic decision task evaluated the degree to which the new language was mastered beyond the single word level. No L1-specific transfer effects were found for artificial language strings. However, when carrying out the same task in the native language, both the Chinese-English and the English-French bilinguals outperformed the English monolinguals, indicative of a bilingual processing advantage. The results are discussed in relation to possible differences in processing styles relating to logographic versus alphabetic languages, variably involving visual versus phonological coding. Keywords: developmental; cognitive; language; learning/cognition

The present study investigated cross-language priming effects with unique noncognate translation pairs. Unbalanced Dutch (first language [L1])--English (second language [L2]) bilinguals performed a lexical decision task in a masked priming paradigm. The results of two experiments showed significant translation priming from L 1 to L2 (meisje--GIRL) and from L2 to L1 (girl--MEISJE), using two different stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs) (250 and 100 msec). Although translation priming from L1 to L2 was significantly stronger than priming from L2 to L1, the latter was significant as well. Two further experiments with the same word targets showed significant cross-language semantic priming in both directions (jongen [boy]--GIRL; boy--MEISJE [GIRL]) and for both SOAs. These data suggest that L1 and L2 are represented by means of a similar lexico-semantic architecture in which L2 words are also able to rapidly activate semantic information, although to a lesser extent than L1 words are able to. This is consistent with models assuming quantitative rather than qualitative differences between L1 and L2 representations.

This study examined the effects of counselor bilingual ability and counselor ethnicity on client-perceived counselor credibility and cultural competence. Participants were assigned to 1 of 4 treatment conditions created by crossing counselor ethnicity with counselor language. No significant differences were found. Regarding rank ordering of the conditions, the European American bilingual counselor was perceived to be more culturally competent than were the Mexican American bilingual counselors. Findings underscore the importance of bilingualism for European American counselors when working with bilingual Mexican American clients., For more than 2 decades, a group of mental health providers (Falicov, 1998; Javier, 1989) and researchers (Martinez & Mendoza, 1984; Ponterotto, 1987; Santiago-Rivera, Arredondo, & Gallardo-Cooper, 2002; Sciarra & [...]

Bilinguals spontaneously switch languages in conversation even though laboratory studies reveal robust cued language switching costs. The authors investigated how voluntary-switching costs might differ when switches are voluntary. Younger (Experiments 1-2) and older (Experiment 3) Spanish--English bilinguals named pictures in 3 conditions: (a) dominant-language only, (b) nondominant-language only, and (c) using 'whatever language comes to mind' (in Experiment 2, 'using each language about half the time'). Most bilinguals, particularly balanced bilinguals, voluntarily mixed languages even though switching was costly. Unlike with cued switching, voluntary switching sometimes facilitated responses, switch costs were not greater for the dominant language, and age effects on language mixing and switching were limited. This suggests that the freedom to mix languages voluntarily allows unbalanced and older bilinguals to function more like balanced and younger bilinguals. Voluntary switch costs reveal an expanded role for inhibitory control in bilingual language production and imply a mandatory separation by language in bilingual lexical selection. Keywords: bilingualism, aging, voluntary switching, language switching, picture naming

A study was conducted to investigate the role of language choice in advertising to bilinguals in global markets. Findings indicate that language formats vary in their advertising effectiveness for different types of products. Results also show that multinational corporations cannot mimic local companies in their choice of advertising language.

Cognitive mechanisms underlying repetition priming in picture naming were decomposed in several experiments. Sets of encoding manipulations meant to selectively prime or reduce priming in object identification or word production components of picture naming were combined factorially to dissociate processes underlying priming in picture naming. Experiments 1, 2, and 3 were conducted with Spanish-English bilingual participants and bilingual materials. Experiments 4, 5A, and 5B were single-language experiments in English or Spanish. A simple process model was used to formalize the theoretical predictions and test them across all experiments simultaneously. Object identification and word production processes were selectively influenced in an additive manner, which suggests that the 2 sets of processes are independent and sequential. The patterns of facilitation support a quantitative model of transfer-appropriate processing in which shared processes from encoding to test are the causal basis and speeded processes are the mechanism of facilitation. Keywords: repetition priming, picture naming, object identification, lexical access, bilingualism

The authors investigated linguistic relativity effects by examining the semantic effects of grammatical gender (present in Italian but absent in English) in fluent bilingual speakers as compared with monolingual speakers. In an error-induction experiment, they used responses by monolingual speakers to establish a baseline for bilingual speakers and show that gender affects the semantic substitution errors made by monolingual Italian speakers compared with monolingual English speakers. They then showed that Italian-English bilingual speakers behave like monolingual English speakers when the task is in English and like monolingual Italian speakers when the task is in Italian, hence exhibiting appropriate semantic representations for each language. These results show that for bilingual speakers there is intraspeaker relativity in semantic representations and, therefore, that gender does not have a conceptual, nonlinguistic effect. The results also have implications for models of bilingual semantic memory and processing. Keywords: linguistic relativity, bilingualism, grammatical gender, speech errors

Ninety-six participants, who were younger (20 years) or older (68 years) adults and either monolingual or bilingual, completed tasks assessing working memory, lexical retrieval, and executive control. Younger participants performed most of the tasks better than older participants, confirming the effect of aging on these processes. The effect of language group was different for each type of task: Monolinguals and bilinguals performed similarly on working memory tasks, monolinguals performed better on lexical retrieval tasks, and bilinguals performed better on executive control tasks, with some evidence for larger language group differences in older participants on the executive control tasks. These results replicate findings from individual studies obtained using only 1 type of task and different participants. The confirmation of this pattern in the same participants is discussed in terms of a suggested explanation of how the need to manage 2 language systems leads to these different outcomes for cognitive and linguistic functions. Keywords: bilingualism, aging, executive control, lexical retrieval, working memory

It has been claimed that bilingualism enhances inhibitory control, but the available evidence is equivocal. The authors evaluated several possible versions of the inhibition hypothesis by comparing monolinguals and bilinguals with regard to stop signal performance, inhibition of return, and the attentional blink. These three phenomena, it can be argued, tap into different aspects of inhibition. Monolinguals and bilinguals did not differ in stop signal reaction time and thus were comparable in terms of active-inhibitory efficiency. However, bilinguals showed no facilitation from spatial cues, showed a strong inhibition of return effect, and exhibited a more pronounced attentional blink. These results suggest that bilinguals do not differ from monolinguals in terms of active inhibition but have acquired a better ability to maintain action goals and to use them to bias goal-related information. Under some circumstances, this ability may indirectly lead to more pronounced reactive inhibition of irrelevant information. Keywords: bilingualism, inhibition, executive functions

The present study examined the nature of the mental representations bilinguals form when reading a text and to what extent they are language specific. English-French bilinguals read five pairs of passages in succession while their eye movements were tracked. Dependent measures were overall reading times on second passages and fixation latencies on target cognates embedded in second passages. The in-st passage was (1) identical to the second passage in the pair, (2) related in content only (i.e., a translation), (3) related in content and some words (i.e., translation with cognates), (4) related in words only (i.e., different content with the same cognates), or (5) unrelated. There was substantial cross-language facilitation for passages that shared meaning, but the amount of transfer was less than that for identical passages, indicating that memory representations are largely meaning based but do contain some information about surface form. Cross-language transfer for cognates was observed but depended on the skill of the bilinguals in their second language, the direction of transfer, and whether the passages shared meaning. These results are discussed in relation to Raney's (2003) model of text representation.

Studies on syntactic priming strongly suggest that bilinguals can store a single integrated representation of constructions that are similar in both languages (e.g., Spanish and English passives; R. J. Hartsuiker, M. J. Pickering, & E. Veltkamp, 2004). However, they may store 2 separate representations of constructions that involve different word orders (e.g., German and English passives; H. Loebell & K. Bock, 2003). In 5 experiments, the authors investigated within- and between-languages priming of Dutch, English, and German relative clauses. The authors found priming within Dutch (Experiment 1) and within English as a 2nd language (Experiments 2 and 4). An important finding is that priming occurred from Dutch to German (Experiment 5), which both have verb-final relative clauses; but if did not occur between Dutch and English (Experiments 3 and 4), which differ in relative-clause word order. The results suggest that word-order repetition is needed for the construction of integrated syntactic representations. Keywords: spoken sentence production, syntactic priming, bilingualism, noun phrases, word order

In the present study, we examined bilingual memory organization, using the priming paradigm. Many of the previous studies in which this experimental technique has been used in the bilingual domain appear to have had several differences in methodology that have caused there to be a lot of variation in the data reported. The aim of the present work was to create an experimental situation that was well constrained so that automatic processes could be observed. In Experiment 1, Spanish-English bilinguals participated in an unmasked semantic- and translation-priming study in which a lexical decision task was used. The results revealed significant translation-priming effects in both language directions and, unexpectedly, significant semantic priming in the L2-L1 direction only. In Experiment 2, we examined semantic- and translation-priming effects with a forward mask design. The results indicated that significant priming was obtained only for translation word pairs in both language directions. These results are discussed with regard to current models of bilingual memory representation.

Greek-French bilinguals were tested in three masked priming experiments with Greek primes and French targets. Related primes were the translation equivalents of target words, morphologically related to targets, or phonologically related to targets. In Experiment 1, cognate translation equivalents (phonologically similar translations) showed facilitatory priming, relative to matched phonologically related primes, in conditions in which morphologically related primes showed no effect (50-msec prime exposure). Cross-language morphological priming emerged at longer prime exposure durations (66 msec), but cognate primes continued to generate more priming than did those in the morphological condition. In Experiments 2 and 3, the level of phonological overlap across translation equivalents was varied, and priming effects were measured against those for matched phonologically related primes and those in an unrelated prime condition. When measured against the unrelated baseline, cognate primes showed the typical advantage over noncognate primes. However, this cognate advantage disappeared when priming was measured against the phonologically related prime condition. The results are discussed in terms of how translation equivalents are represented in bilingual memory.

For bilingual persons, comprehension of a word in a second language (L2 word) could be achieved via an indirect route, in which the L2 word is first translated into the first language (L1) before meaning is accessed, or via a direct route, in which an L2 word directly activates its meaning. To test these two accounts, proficient Dutch-English bilinguals were asked to translate and to categorize L2 words of high and low familiarity. These L2 words were accompanied by a Dutch context word that was either phonologically related or unrelated to its Dutch translation equivalent. The results showed a clear phonological facilitation effect in the translation task but no phonological facilitation in the categorization task. This result was taken as evidence for a 'direct route' from the L2 word to its meaning.

Balanced Turkish-English bilingual participants viewed word pairs, presented both monolingually (English-English or Turkish-Turkish) or bilingually (English-Turkish or Turkish-English) and both for short and long durations. They made decisions on whether the simultaneously presented words in a pair were in the same language or not, or whether they denoted the same concept or not. In the short presentation condition, we found no evidence for subliminal processing. In cases in which both words were consciously identified, participants were more accurate, although not faster in the long than in the short presentation condition for both language and concept decisions. In the long presentation condition, language decisions were more accurate than concept decisions, although not faster. In addition, language decisions were not affected by whether the words were synonyms (concept identity), and concept decisions were not affected by whether the presentation was monolingual or bilingual (language identity), although in the monolingual conditions, 'same' decisions were faster but not more accurate, and in the bilingual conditions a speed-accuracy trade-off was observed in that 'same' decisions were faster but 'different' decisions were more accurate.

Timing and amount of exposure to a 2nd language in the acquisition of phonotactic restrictions was examined in 4 experiments. In Experiments 1 and 2, 10-month-old monolingual and bilingual Catalan-Spanish infants were presented with nonwords that were phonotactically legal or illegal in Catalan and phonotactically illegal in Spanish. Differences between the 4 groups of infants were obtained as a function of language dominance. In Experiments 3 and 4, adult Spanish-Catalan bilinguals were compared with the same materials. Catalan-dominant bilinguals were more accurate than Spanish-dominant bilinguals in their perception of legal sequences; however, they were not more accurate with illegal sequences. The findings suggest a complex correlation between the pattern of preference and the amount and timing of exposure.