Dataset Information

Conflict Resolution Ability in Late Bilinguals Improves With Increased Second-Language Proficiency: ANT Evidence.

ABSTRACT: Experimental data supporting the claim that bilingual speakers have superior cognitive control abilities are often questioned with respect to certain methodological limitations. One such limitation is the use of between-group design, potentially confounding bilingual status with other factors (e.g., socioeconomic status). Here, we used a homogeneous sample of 57 young adult Russian-English late unbalanced bilinguals who were administrated Attention Network Task (ANT) together with an L2 proficiency task. We tested the correlation of L2 vocabulary performance with conflict and alertness measures and overall reaction times in ANT performance. Overall, participants demonstrated better conflict resolution with the increase in their second language competence, with 8% of variance in conflict resolution explained by L2 proficiency. Our results support the notion of regular correspondence between bilingualism and cognitive control.

SUBMITTER: Novitskiy N

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6934129 | biostudies-literature | 2019

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Conflict Resolution Ability in Late Bilinguals Improves With Increased Second-Language Proficiency: ANT Evidence.

Novitskiy Nikolay N Shtyrov Yury Y Myachykov Andriy A

Frontiers in psychology 20191220

Experimental data supporting the claim that bilingual speakers have superior cognitive control abilities are often questioned with respect to certain methodological limitations. One such limitation is the use of between-group design, potentially confounding bilingual status with other factors (e.g., socioeconomic status). Here, we used a homogeneous sample of 57 young adult Russian-English late unbalanced bilinguals who were administrated Attention Network Task (ANT) together with an L2 proficie ...[more]

PMID: 31920860

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Project description:Late bilinguals who spend (part of) their adult lives in an environment where a language other than the one they learned in childhood is spoken typically experience a range of language development phenomena. Most obviously, they will acquire some level of receptive and/or productive knowledge of the new, or second, language (L2). How basic or advanced that level will be is determined by a range of environmental, experiential, attitudinal and individual factors. Secondly, they will most likely find the knowledge of their native language (L1) beginning to diverge from that of monolingual speakers in their country of origin, a process known as language attrition. In the course of this developmental process, some L2 skills may eventually match or even overtake the corresponding skill in the L1. This shift in the balance between L1 and L2 is the focus of investigations of language dominance. The present study explores language dominance in four migrant populations (Germans in the Netherlands and Canada, Turks and Moroccans in the Netherlands). Investigating both the development of formal/controlled skills and more automatic aspects of lexical access and fluency, we aim to attain an understanding of how extralinguistic factors contribute to the development of both languages. We argue that an integrated perspective can contribute more profound insights into the predictors of this complex process of bilingual development. In particular, our findings show that statistical models based on linear relationships fall short of capturing the full picture. We propose an alternative method of analysing data, namely discriminant function analysis, based on a categorisation of the populations, and demonstrate how this can enhance our understanding. Our findings suggest that different aspects of the bilingual experience contribute differently to language development, regardless of language combination and type of skill measured. Contrary to what previous research suggests, measures relating to the intensity of informal use of both the L1 and the L2 in daily life are important in determining whether someone is a good or a poor L1 maintainer, while high vs. low success in acquisition appears to be predominantly associated with personal factors such as educational level.

Project description:Reading strategies vary across languages according to orthographic depth - the complexity of the grapheme in relation to phoneme conversion rules - notably at the level of eye movement patterns. We recently demonstrated that a group of early bilinguals, who learned both languages equally under the age of seven, presented a first fixation location (FFL) closer to the beginning of words when reading in German as compared with French. Since German is known to be orthographically more transparent than French, this suggested that different strategies were being engaged depending on the orthographic depth of the used language. Opaque languages induce a global reading strategy, and transparent languages force a local/serial strategy. Thus, pseudo-words were processed using a local strategy in both languages, suggesting that the link between word forms and their lexical representation may also play a role in selecting a specific strategy. In order to test whether corresponding effects appear in late bilinguals with low proficiency in their second language (L2), we present a new study in which we recorded eye movements while two groups of late German-French and French-German bilinguals read aloud isolated French and German words and pseudo-words. Since, a transparent reading strategy is local and serial, with a high number of fixations per stimuli, and the level of the bilingual participants' L2 is low, the impact of language opacity should be observed in L1. We therefore predicted a global reading strategy if the bilinguals' L1 was French (FFL close to the middle of the stimuli with fewer fixations per stimuli) and a local and serial reading strategy if it was German. Thus, the L2 of each group, as well as pseudo-words, should also require a local and serial reading strategy. Our results confirmed these hypotheses, suggesting that global word processing is only achieved by bilinguals with an opaque L1 when reading in an opaque language; the low level in the L2 gives way to a local and serial reading strategy. These findings stress the fact that reading behavior is influenced not only by the linguistic mode but also by top-down factors, such as readers' proficiency.

Dataset Information

Conflict Resolution Ability in Late Bilinguals Improves With Increased Second-Language Proficiency: ANT Evidence.

Publications

Conflict Resolution Ability in Late Bilinguals Improves With Increased Second-Language Proficiency: ANT Evidence.

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