Language-specific Knowledge and Short-term Memory in Bilingual and Non-bilingual Children

The sensitivity of children's phonological short-term memory performance to languagespecific knowledge was investigated in two experiments. In Experiment 1, monolingual English children, English-French bilingual children, and English children who were learning French as a second language were compared on measures of phonological short-term memory and vocabulary in the two languages. The children's short-term memory performance in each language mirrored their familiarity with English and French, with greater vocabulary knowledge being associated with higher levels of recall of both words and nonwords in that language. This finding was replicated in Experiment 2, in which two groups of children with good knowledge of English and French were examined: native bilingual children who had comparable knowledge of the two languages and non-native bilingual children who had a greater knowledge of their native than second language. The findings indicate that phonological short-term memory is not a language-independent system but, rather, functions in a highly language-specific way.     

Memory for concrete and abstract words in bilingual speakers

The dual-code hypothesis of Paivio was taken to imply that bilingual speakers should show poorer memory for the language in which concrete words appeared than the language in which abstract words appeared. The results of two experiments with German-English bilinguals, one using a recognition memory procedure and the other using the free recall task, found the opposite state of affairs. Semantic recognition, free recall, and memory for language of occurrence were all found to be superior for concrete words. Two hypotheses were advanced. One, called the "cultural imagery hypothesis," assumes that images may be culture specific, while the other hypothesis interprets the outcome in terms of the relations between stored attributes. An analysis of the experiment as an attribute-memory procedure is presented.     

Language familiarity effects in short-term memory: The role of output delay and long-term knowledge

Four experiments examined the origins of language familiarity effects in bilingual short-term recall. In Experiments 1A and 1B, bilingual adults were tested on serial recall and probed serial recall of words and nonwords in their first and second languages. A first-language advantage was obtained on both measures, indicating that the beneficial effects of language familiarity are not exclusively attributable to lesser output delay during overt recall. In Experiments 2A and 2B, the same group of bilinguals was tested on serial recall and serial recognition of word lists in both languages. Although a sizeable first-language advantage was obtained on the serial recall measure, recognition performance was comparable in the two languages. On the basis of these results it is suggested that language differences in bilingual immediate memory arise in large part as a consequence of the differential availability of language-specific long-term knowledge with which to support retrieval processes in serial recall.     

Interlinguistic conflict: Word–word Stroop with first and second language colour words

The congruency (or Stroop) effect is a standard observation of slower and less accurate colour identification to incongruent trials (e.g. “red” in green) relative to congruent trials (e.g. “red” in red). This effect has been observed in a word–word variant of the task, when both the distracter (e.g. “red”) and target (e.g. “green”) are colour words. The Stroop task has also been used to study the congruency effect between two languages in bilinguals. The typical finding is that the congruency effect for L1 words is larger than that for L2 words. For the first time, the present report aims to extend this finding to a word–word variant of the bilingual Stroop task. In two experiments, French monolinguals performed a bilingual word–word Stroop task in which target word language, language match, and congruency between the distracter and target were manipulated. The critical manipulation across two experiments concerned the target language. In Experiment 1, target language was manipulated between groups, with either French (L1) or English (L2) target colour words. In Experiment 2, target words from both languages were intermixed. In both experiments, the congruency effect was larger when the distracter and target were from the same language (language match) than when they were from different languages (language mismatch). Our findings suggested that this congruency effect mostly depends on the language match between the distracter and target, rather than on a target language. It also did not seem to matter whether the language-mismatching distracter was or was not a potential response alternative. Semantic activation of languages in bilinguals and its implications on target identification are discussed.

     

French norms of imagery for pictures, for concrete and abstract words]

This paper deals with French norms for mental image versus picture agreement for 138 pictures and the imagery value for 138 concrete words and 69 abstract words. The pictures were selected from Snodgrass et Vanderwart's norms (1980). The concrete words correspond to the dominant naming response to the pictorial stimuli. The abstract words were taken from verbal associative norms published by Ferrand (2001). The norms were established according to two variables: 1) mental image vs. picture agreement, and 2) imagery value of words. Three other variables were controlled: 1) picture naming agreement; 2) familiarity of objects referred to in the pictures and the concrete words, and 3) subjective verbal frequency of words. The originality of this work is to provide French imagery norms for the three kinds of stimuli usually compared in research on dual coding. Moreover, these studies focus on figurative and verbal stimuli variations in visual imagery processes.     

Imagery rating and recall in congenitally blind subjects.

Imagery ratings, incidental free recall, and intentional free recall of a group of young congenitally blind adults living in an institute for the blind and of control group were compared. Words to be rated and recalled belonged to three categories: (a) high-imagery words whose referents can be sensorially experienced also by the blind; (b) high-imagery words whose referents cannot be experienced; and (c) low-imagery words. In the control group, both ratings of imagery and recall were affected by the category to which the word belonged. For the blind group the category of the word affected only the ratings of imagery which still assumed a peculiar form since words in category b received extremely low ratings. It is concluded that the blind can evaluate the imagery value of a word, but that their recall is not affected by the level of its imagery value. Therefore, the imagery value really seems to describe, as Paivio asserts, the susceptibility of an item to being coded in a specific visuo-imaginal way, which is more available for sighted than for blind people.     

Imagery Value,Subjective and Objective Frequency,Date of Entry into the Language,and Degree of Polysemy in a Sample of 998 French Words

A random sample of 998 lexical words was drawn from a dictionary of the French language. Two groups of subjects rated the words for imagery value (IV) and subjective frequency (SF). Despite substantial individual differences in the ratings, the subjective measures were highly reliable (α = 0.98 for both IV and SF). The relation between the standard deviation and the mean of the ratings can be described by a quadratic function (R = 0.93 for IV and R = 0.75 for SF). The independence of IV and frequency was confirmed. IV was found to be partially dependent on grammatical category (η = 0.50) and slightly dependent on polysemy. Date of entry into the language (DE) was correlated with objective and subjective frequency. The correlation between DE and IV was weak. The words and their characteristics are presented in the Appendix.     

Language differences in verbal short-term memory do not exclusively originate in the process of subvocal rehearsal

Language differences in verbal short-term memory were investigated in two experiments. In Experiment 1, bilinguals with high competence in English and French and monolingual English adults with extremely limited knowledge of French were assessed on their serial recall of words and nonwords in both languages. In all cases recall accuracy was superior in the language with which individuals were most familiar, a first-language advantage that remained when variation due to differential rates of articulation in the two languages was taken into account. In Experiment 2, bilinguals recalled lists of English and French words with and without concurrent articulatory suppression. First-language superiority persisted under suppression, suggesting that the language differences in recall accuracy were not attributable to slower rates of subvocal rehearsal in the less familiar language. The findings indicate that language-specific differences in verbal short-term memory do not exclusively originate in the subvocal rehearsal process. It is suggested that one source of language-specific variation might relate to the use of long-term knowledge to support short-term memory performance.     

The role of type and token frequency in using past tense morphemes correctly

Type and token frequency have been thought to be important in the acquisition of past tense morphology, particularly in differentiating regular and irregular forms. In this study we tested the role of frequency in two ways: (1) in bilingual children, who typically use and hear either language less often than monolingual children and (2) cross-linguistically: French and English have different patterns of frequency of regular/irregular verbs. Ten French-English bilingual children, 10 French monolingual and 10 English monolingual children between 4 and 6 years watched a cartoon and re-told the story. The results demonstrated that the bilingual children were less accurate than the monolingual children. Their accuracy in both French and English regular and irregular verbs corresponded to frequency in the input language. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that children learn past tense morphemes by analogy with other words in their vocabularies. We propose a developmental sequence based on conservative generalization across a growing set of verbs.     

Recall criterion does not affect recall level or hypermnesia: A puzzle for generate/recognize theories

Subjects studied a mixed list of 70 words that varied in imagery value and then received three successive tests. Also varied were instructions given to subjects prior to list presentation (imagery or semantic rehearsal) and the type of recall test (standard free recall, an uninhibited-recall procedure in which subjects were encouraged to free associate and to guess while recalling the list, and a forced-recall condition in which they were also told to write a large number of responses to fill the allotted spaces). Recall improved across the three tests in all conditions, but the improvement was greater for high-than for low-imagery words. In addition, hypermnesia (the improved recall across tests) was shown to occur following semantic rehearsal instructions as well as imagery instructions and to occur with low-imagery words, contrary to the imagery hypothesis of the effect. Most importantly, the large variation in recall criterion produced by manipulating instructions at test (as measured by intrusions) did not affect the overall level of correct recall or the magnitude of improvements across tests. Apparently, the assumption of generate-recognize theories that people generate much more information in free recall than they produce (due to a stringent criterion for recognition of the generated material) is false.     

La version française du dictionnaire pour le LIWC : modalités de construction et exemples d’utilisation

LIWC is, originally, a text analysis program that counts words of English texts in psychologically meaningful categories. It provides an analysis (in percentage) for 80 dimensions of language (functional words, topics, punctuation). The goal of this methodological note is to present the French LIWC. This version respects the structure of the categories of the English version of the software and gives explanations about the user guide such the preparation of the to be analyzed texts. Then, we explain the decisions for translating the English dictionary into French. We emphasize the constraints imposed by the morphology of written French language and the difficulties encountered (elision of the article, elision of negation and of verbs’ tense). Presenting the translation problems allows understanding the modalities of construction of the dictionary and allows for a LIWC user to build a personalized dictionary in order to analyze contents more suited to the research needs. A qualitative comparison of dimensions obtained with both the French and English versions for 66 bilingual texts of various types and contents provides satisfactory results. A statistical comparison of 119 expressive writings produced by students from three university courses (Humanities, Sciences and Psychology) about a given event (success or failure to an exam) shows the validity of the French version for identifying the expressed contents. Thus, this tool should be efficient for undertaking research in different fields of psychology (health, work and education) concerning oral and written language produced in different contexts.     

Cross‐linguistic interactions influence reading development in bilinguals: a comparison between early balanced French‐Basque and Spanish‐Basque bilingual children

This study investigates whether orthographic consistency and transparency of languages have an impact on the development of reading strategies and reading sub‐skills (i.e. phonemic awareness and visual attention span) in bilingual children. We evaluated 21 French (opaque)‐Basque (transparent) bilingual children and 21 Spanish (transparent)‐Basque (transparent) bilingual children at Grade 2, and 16 additional children of each group at Grade 5. All of them were assessed in their common language (i.e. Basque) on tasks measuring word and pseudoword reading, phonemic awareness and visual attention span skills. The Spanish speaking groups showed better Basque pseudoword reading and better phonemic awareness abilities than their French speaking peers, but only in the most difficult conditions of the tasks. However, on the visual attention span task, the French‐Basque bilinguals showed the most efficient visual processing strategies to perform the task. Therefore, learning to read in an additional language affected differently Basque literacy skills, depending on whether this additional orthography was opaque (e.g. French) or transparent (e.g. Spanish). Moreover, we showed that the most noteworthy effects of Spanish and French orthographic transparency on Basque performance were related to the size of the phonological and visual grain used to perform the tasks.     

The first steps in word learning are easier when the shoes fit: comparing monolingual and bilingual infants

English, French, and bilingual English-French 17-month-old infants were compared for their performance on a word learning task using the Switch task. Object names presented a /b/ vs. /g/ contrast that is phonemic in both English and French, and auditory strings comprised English and French pronunciations by an adult bilingual. Infants were habituated to two novel objects labeled 'bowce' or 'gowce' and were then presented with a switch trial where a familiar word and familiar object were paired in a novel combination, and a same trial with a familiar word–object pairing. Bilingual infants looked significantly longer to switch vs. same trials, but English and French monolinguals did not, suggesting that bilingual infants can learn word–object associations when the phonetic conditions favor their input. Monolingual infants likely failed because the bilingual mode of presentation increased phonetic variability and did not match their real-world input. Experiment 2 tested this hypothesis by presenting monolingual infants with nonce word tokens restricted to native language pronunciations. Monolinguals succeeded in this case. Experiment 3 revealed that the presence of unfamiliar pronunciations in Experiment 2, rather than a reduction in overall phonetic variability was the key factor to success, as French infants failed when tested with English pronunciations of the nonce words. Thus phonetic variability impacts how infants perform in the switch task in ways that contribute to differences in monolingual and bilingual performance. Moreover, both monolinguals and bilinguals are developing adaptive speech processing skills that are specific to the language(s) they are learning.     

Bilingual Reading of Compound Words

The present study investigated whether bilingual readers activate constituents of compound words in one language while processing compound words in the other language via decomposition. Two experiments using a lexical decision task were conducted with adult Korean-English bilingual readers. In Experiment 1, the lexical decision of real English compound words was more accurate when the translated compounds (the combination of the translation equivalents of the constituents) in Korean (the nontarget language) were real words than when they were nonwords. In Experiment 2, when the frequency of the second constituents of compound words in English (the target language) was manipulated, the effect of lexical status of the translated compounds was greater on the compounds with high-frequency second constituents than on those with low-frequency second constituents in the target language. Together, these results provided evidence for morphological decomposition and cross-language activation in bilingual reading of compound words.     

Speaking two languages with different number naming systems: What implications for magnitude judgments in bilinguals at different stages of language acquisition?

Differences between languages in terms of number naming systems may lead to performance differences in number processing. The current study focused on differences concerning the order of decades and units in two-digit number words (i.e., unit-decade order in German but decade-unit order in French) and how they affect number magnitude judgments. Participants performed basic numerical tasks, namely two-digit number magnitude judgments, and we used the compatibility effect (Nuerk et al. in Cognition 82(1):B25–B33, 2001) as a hallmark of language influence on numbers. In the first part we aimed to understand the influence of language on compatibility effects in adults coming from German or French monolingual and German–French bilingual groups (Experiment 1). The second part examined how this language influence develops at different stages of language acquisition in individuals with increasing bilingual proficiency (Experiment 2). Language systematically influenced magnitude judgments such that: (a) The spoken language(s) modulated magnitude judgments presented as Arabic digits, and (b) bilinguals’ progressive language mastery impacted magnitude judgments presented as number words. Taken together, the current results suggest that the order of decades and units in verbal numbers may qualitatively influence magnitude judgments in bilinguals and monolinguals, providing new insights into how number processing can be influenced by language(s).     

The effect of childhood bilingualism on episodic and semantic memory tasks

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.     

BRIEF REPORT Bilinguals' recall and recognition of emotion words

Recall of emotion words is superior to neutral words. Prior work reported in this journal (Anooshian & Hertel, 1994) found that this effect was absent in a second language. Words in a second language may thus lack the emotional associations of words acquired in childhood. To determine whether memory probes may be generally useful for assessing emotionality effects in a first versus a second language, Anooshian and Hertel's paradigm was extended in several ways. Recall was compared to recognition, and a variety of types of emotion words were studied, including taboo terms, and phrases likely to be learned in childhood (reprimands). Superior memory for emotion words was obtained in both the recall and recognition tasks, but this occurred in both the first and second language and indeed was stronger, for some stimuli, in the second language. This suggests that, even for bilingual speakers who acquire their second late (after age 12), words in the second language retain rich emotional associations.     

Bilinguals’ twisted tongues: Frequency lag or interference?

Though bilinguals know many more words than monolinguals, within each language bilinguals exhibit some processing disadvantages, extending to sublexical processes specifying the sound structure of words (Gollan & Goldrick, Cognition, 125(3), 491–497, 2012). This study investigated the source of this bilingual disadvantage. Spanish–English bilinguals, Mandarin–English bilinguals, and English monolinguals repeated tongue twisters composed of English nonwords. Twister materials were made up of sound sequences that are unique to the English language (nonoverlapping) or sound sequences that are highly similar—yet phonetically distinct—in the two languages for the bilingual groups (overlapping). If bilingual disadvantages in tongue-twister production result from competition between phonetic representations in their two languages, bilinguals should have more difficulty selecting an intended target when similar sounds are activated in the overlapping sound sequences. Alternatively, if bilingual disadvantages reflect the relatively reduced frequency of use of sound sequences, bilinguals should have greater difficulty in the nonoverlapping condition (as the elements of such sound sequences are limited to a single language). Consistent with the frequency-lag account, but not the competition account, both Spanish–English and Mandarin–English bilinguals were disadvantaged in tongue-twister production only when producing twisters with nonoverlapping sound sequences. Thus, the bilingual disadvantage in tongue-twister production likely reflects reduced frequency of use of sound sequences specific to each language.     

Concreteness effects in free recall: The roles of imaginai and relational processing

Two experiments reevaluated the possible role of mental imagery in free recall of concrete and abstract words. In Experiment 1, the number and rate of list presentations were manipulated. Incidental recall following an imagery rating task yielded reliable concreteness effects after two presentations but not after a single presentation, regardless of presentation rate. In Experiment 2, we examined the effects of relational (categorization) and item-specific (imagery rating) processing tasks on memory for categorically related or unrelated concrete and abstract words. Concreteness effects were obtained when unrelated words were sorted into categories but not when they were rated on imagery. Related words failed to yield concreteness effects under any orienting condition. The results support the view that the presence or absence of concreteness effects in free recall depends on the relative salience of distinctive and relational information. This conclusion constrains theoretical explanations of the role of mental imagery in memory and cognition.     

Emotionality in free recall: Language specificity in bilingual memory

Abstract

Bilingual subjects (Spanish English) who had acquired fluency in their second language after 8 years of age rated 18 emotional and 18 neutral words for ease of pronunciation, implied activity, or emotionality; half of each type was presented in Spanish and half in English. During a subsequent, unexpected test of free recall subjects recalled more emotional than neutral words, but only for words that had been presented in the native language. This finding applied across native-language groups and suggests that emotion provides a basis for language specificity in bilingual memory.