Exploiting Language Variation to Better Understand the Cognitive Consequences of Bilingualism

Impact of speech rate on perception of vowel and consonant duration by bilinguals and monolinguals

The perceptual boundary between short and long categories depends on speech rate. We investigated the influence of speech rate on perceptual boundaries for short and long vowel and consonant contrasts by Spanish-English bilingual listeners and English monolinguals. Listeners tended to adapt their perceptual boundaries to speech rates, but the strategy differed between groups, especially for consonants. Understanding the factors that influence auditory processing in this population is essential for developing appropriate assessments of auditory comprehension. These findings have implications for the clinical care of older populations whose ability to rely on spectral and/or temporal information in the auditory signal may decline.

Daily and Ethnic Discriminatory Experiences and Cognitive Control in Mexican-Origin Bilingual Language Brokers

Few studies have considered bilingualism's impact on cognitive development within the sociolinguistic and cultural context of the immigrant communities where bilingualism is commonly practiced. In the United States, many Mexican-origin bilingual youth practice their bilingual skills by brokering (i.e., translating/interpreting between languages) for their immigrant parents who have low English proficiency. Meanwhile, these youth may also experience discrimination in their daily life. The present study focuses on Mexican-origin bilingual youth brokers (N=334) in order to examine how discriminatory experiences (i.e., daily and ethnic discrimination) and bilingual brokering experiences captured by profiles are related to cognitive control performance (i.e., attentional control and inhibition). We found no significant direct influence of either bilingual broker profiles or discriminatory experiences on cognitive control. However, the associations between discriminatory experiences and cognitive control performance depended upon brokering experiences. Specifically, greater discrimination was associated with lower cognitive control performance among moderate brokers (with moderate bilingual experiences), but the association was attenuated among efficacious brokers (with positive bilingual experiences). Findings highlight the need to consider the sociolinguistic heterogeneity of both discriminatory experiences and language use when investigating cognitive control performance in bilinguals.

Assessing language background and experiences among heritage bilinguals

The language backgrounds and experiences of bilinguals have been primarily characterized using self-report questionnaires and laboratory tasks, although each of these assessments have their strengths and weaknesses. The Electronically Activated Recorder (EAR), an audio recording device, has recently become more prominent as a method of assessing real-world language use. We investigated the relationships among these three assessment tools, to understand the shared variance in how these measures evaluated various aspects of the bilingual experience. Participants were 60 Southern California heritage bilingual college students who spoke a variety of heritage languages and began to learn English between the ages of 0-to 12-years. Participants completed both self-report and laboratory-based measures of language proficiency and use, and they wore the EAR for 4  days to capture representative samples of their day-to-day heritage language (HL) use. The results indicated that self-reported HL use and English age of acquisition were significant predictors of real-world language use as measured by the EAR. In addition, self-reported HL proficiency and laboratory-based HL proficiency, as measured by verbal fluency, were mutually predictive. While some variability was shared across different assessments, ultimately, none of the measures correlated strongly and each measure captured unique information about the heritage bilingual language experience, highlighting the dissociation between language experience measured at a single point in time and an accumulated life history with a heritage language. These findings may provide guidance for bilingualism researchers about which assessment tool, or combination of tools, may be best for their specific research questions.

Re-Examining Labels in Neurocognitive Research: Evidence from Bilingualism and Autism as Spectrum-Trait Cases

Despite the fact that the urge to investigate bilingualism and neurodevelopmental disorders as continuous indices rather than categorical ones has been well-voiced among researchers with respect to research methodological approaches, in the recent literature, when it comes to examining language, cognitive skills and neurodivergent characteristics, it is still the case that the most prevalent view is the categorisation of adults or children into groups. In other words, there is a categorisation of individuals, e.g., monolingual vs. bilingual children or children with typical and atypical/non-typical/non-neurotypical development. We believe that this labelling is responsible for the conflicting results that we often come across in studies. The aim of this review is to bring to the surface the importance of individual differences through the study of relevant articles conducted in bilingual children and children with autism, who are ideal for this study. We concur with researchers who already do so, and we further suggest moving away from labels and instead shift towards the view that not everything is either white or black. We provide suggestions as to how this shift could be implemented in research, while mostly aiming at starting a discourse rather than offering a definite path.

Why not both? Rethinking categorical and continuous approaches to bilingualism

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES

Bilingualism is a complex construct, and it can be difficult to define and model. This paper proposes that the field of bilingualism can draw from other fields of psychology, by integrating advanced psychometric models that incorporate both categorical and continuous properties. These models can unify the widespread use of bilingual and monolingual groups that exist in the literature with recent proposals that bilingualism should be viewed as a continuous variable.

APPROACH

In the paper, we highlight two models of potential interest: the factor mixture model and the grade-of-membership model. These models simultaneously allow for the formation of different categories of speakers and for continuous variation to exist within these categories. We discuss how these models could be implemented in bilingualism research, including how to develop these models. When using either of the two models, researchers can conduct their analyses on either the categorical or continuous information, or a combination of the two, depending on which is most appropriate to address their research question.

CONCLUSIONS

The field of bilingualism research could benefit from incorporating more complex models into definitions of bilingualism. To help various subfields of bilingualism research converge on appropriate models, we encourage researchers to pre-register their model selection and planned analyses, as well as to share their data and analysis scripts.

ORIGINALITY

The paper uniquely proposes the incorporation of advanced statistical psychometric methods for defining and modeling bilingualism.

SIGNIFICANCE

Conceptualizing bilingualism within the context of these more flexible models will allow a wide variety of research questions to be addressed. Ultimately, this will help to advance theory and lead to a fuller and deeper understanding of bilingualism.

Bilingualism: A Neurocognitive Exercise in Managing Uncertainty

Bilinguals have distinct linguistic experiences relative to monolinguals, stemming from interactions with the environment and the individuals therein. Theories of language control hypothesize that these experiences play a role in adapting the neurocognitive systems responsible for control. Here we posit a potential mechanism for these adaptations, namely that bilinguals face additional language-related uncertainties on top of other ambiguities that regularly occur in language, such as lexical and syntactic competition. When faced with uncertainty in the environment, people adapt internal representations to lessen these uncertainties, which can aid in executive control and decision-making. We overview a cognitive framework on uncertainty, which we extend to language and bilingualism. We then review two "case studies," assessing language-related uncertainty for bilingual contexts using language entropy and network scientific approaches. Overall, we find that there is substantial individual variability in the extent to which people experience language-related uncertainties in their environments, but also regularity across some contexts. This information, in turn, predicts cognitive adaptations associated with language fluency and engagement in proactive cognitive control strategies. These findings suggest that bilinguals adapt to the cumulative language-related uncertainties in the environment. We conclude by suggesting avenues for future research and links with other research domains. Ultimately, a focus on uncertainty will help bridge traditionally separate scientific domains, such as language processing, bilingualism, and decision-making.

Measuring Bilingualism: The Quest for a "Bilingualism Quotient"

The study of bilingualism has a history that extends from deciphering ancient multilingual texts to mapping the structure of the multilingual brain. The language experiences of individual bilinguals are equally diverse and characterized by unique contexts of acquisition and use that can shape not only sociocultural identity, but also cognitive and neural function. Perhaps unsurprisingly, this variability in scholarly perspectives and language experiences has given rise to a range of methods for defining bilingualism. The goal of this paper is to initiate a conversation about the utility of a more unified approach to how we think about, study, and measure bilingualism. Using concrete case studies, we illustrate the value of enhancing communication and streamlining terminology across researchers with different methodologies within questions, different questions within domains, and different domains within scientific inquiry. We specifically consider the utility and feasibility of a Bilingualism Quotient (BQ) construct, discuss the idea of a BQ relative to the well-established Intelligence Quotient (IQ), and include recommendations for next steps. We conclude that though the variability in language backgrounds and approaches to defining bilingualism presents significant challenges, concerted efforts to systematize and synthesize research across the field may enable the construction of a valid and generalizable index of multilingual experience.

Engaging proactive control: Influences of diverse language experiences using insights from machine learning

We used insights from machine learning to address an important but contentious question: Is bilingual language experience associated with executive control abilities? Specifically, we assess proactive executive control for over 400 young adult bilinguals via reaction time (RT) on an AX continuous performance task (AX-CPT). We measured bilingual experience as a continuous, multidimensional spectrum (i.e., age of acquisition, language entropy, and sheer second language exposure). Linear mixed effects regression analyses indicated significant associations between bilingual language experience and proactive control, consistent with previous work. Information criteria (e.g., AIC) and cross-validation further suggested that these models are robust in predicting data from novel, unmodeled participants. These results were bolstered by cross-validated LASSO regression, a form of penalized regression. However, the results of both cross-validation procedures also indicated that similar predictive performance could be achieved through simpler models that only included information about the AX-CPT (i.e., trial type). Collectively, these results suggest that the effects of bilingual experience on proactive control, to the extent that they exist in younger adults, are likely small. Thus, future studies will require even larger or qualitatively different samples (e.g., older adults or children) in combination with valid, granular quantifications of language experience to reveal predictive effects on novel participants. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Bilingualism and domain-general cognitive functions from a neural perspective: A systematic review

A large body of research has indicated that bilingualism - through continual practice in language control - may impact cognitive functions, as well as relevant aspects of brain function and structure. The present review aimed to bring together findings on the relationship between bilingualism and domain-general cognitive functions from a neural perspective. The final sample included 210 studies, covering findings regarding neural responses to bilingual language control and/or domain-general cognitive tasks, as well as findings regarding effects of bilingualism on non-task-related brain function and brain structure. The evidence indicates that a) bilingual language control likely entails neural mechanisms responsible for domain-general cognitive functions; b) bilingual experiences impact neural responses to domain-general cognitive functions; and c) bilingual experiences impact non-task-related brain function (both resting-state and metabolic function) as well as aspects of brain structure (both macrostructure and microstructure), each of which may in turn impact mental processes, including domain-general cognitive functions. Such functional and structural neuroplasticity associated with bilingualism may contribute to both cognitive and neural reserves, producing benefits across the lifespan.

Intralingual Variation in Acceptability Judgments and Production: Three Case Studies in Russian Grammar

This paper contributes to the task of defining the relationship between the results of production and rating experiments in the context of language variation. We address the following research question: how may the grammatical options available to a single speaker be distributed in the two domains of production and perception? We argue that previous studies comparing acceptability judgments and frequencies of occurrence suffer from significant limitations. We approach the correspondence of production and perception data by adopting an experimental design different from those used in previous research: (i) instead of using a corpus we use production data obtained experimentally from respondents who are later asked to make judgments, (ii) instead of pairwise phenomena we examine language variation, (iii) judgments are collected formally using the conditions and materials from the production experiment, (iv) we analyze the behavior of each participant across the production and acceptability judgment experiments. In particular, we examine three phenomena of variation in Russian: case variation in nominalizations, gender mismatch, and case variation in paucal constructions. Our results show that there is substantial alignment between acceptability ratings and frequency of occurrence. However, the distribution of frequencies and acceptability scores do not always correlate. Speakers are not consistent in choosing a single variant across the two types of experiment. Importantly, the types of inconsistency they display differ, which means that the variation can be characterized from this point of view. We conclude that the degree of coherence of the two experiments reflects the effects of the evolution of variation over time. Another result is that elicited production and acceptability judgments vary with respect to how they reveal variation in language. In the case of the development or disappearance of variants, production indicates this earlier than judgments, and the rating task has the effect of restricting the choices available to respondents. However, the production method should not thereby be considered more sensitive. We argue that only a combination of production and judgment data makes it possible to estimate the directionality of changes in variability and to see the full distribution of different variants.

Bilingual Alignments

The issue of how to distinguish bilingual syntactic representations from processing preferences or strategies is addressed by postulating the concept of permeable bilingual alignments as memory storage devices that include information from different language components. Supporting evidence from phenomena such as the emergence of innovative mappings across different components (phonology, morphology, syntax, the lexicon, and information structure), bidirectional transfer, and frequency effects is presented, and some possible consequences of adopting this proposal are discussed.

Not All Bilinguals Are the Same: A Call for More Detailed Assessments and Descriptions of Bilingual Experiences

No two bilinguals are the same. Differences in bilingual experiences can affect language-related processes but have also been proposed to modulate executive functioning. Recently, there has been an increased interest in studying individual differences between bilinguals, for example in terms of their age of acquisition, language proficiency, use, and switching. However, and despite the importance of this individual variation, studies often do not provide detailed assessments of their bilingual participants. This review first discusses several aspects of bilingualism that have been studied in relation to executive functioning. Next, I review different questionnaires and objective measurements that have been proposed to better define bilingual experiences. In order to better understand (effects of) bilingualism within and across studies, it is crucial to carefully examine and describe not only a bilingual's proficiency and age of acquisition, but also their language use and switching as well as the different interactional contexts in which they use their languages.

Does the Bilingual Advantage in Cognitive Control Exist and If So, What Are Its Modulating Factors? A Systematic Review

Recently, doubts were raised about the existence of the bilingual advantage in cognitive control. The aim of the present review was to investigate the bilingual advantage and its modulating factors. We searched the Medline, ScienceDirect, Scopus, and ERIC databases for all original data and reviewed studies on bilingualism and cognitive control, with a cut-off date of 31 October 2018, thereby following the guidelines of the preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analysis (PRISMA) protocol. The results of the 46 original studies show that indeed, the majority, 54.3%, reported beneficial effects of bilingualism on cognitive control tasks; however, 28.3% found mixed results and 17.4% found evidence against its existence. Methodological differences seem to explain these mixed results: Particularly, the varying selection of the bilingual participants, the use of nonstandardized tests, and the fact that individual differences were often neglected and that longitudinal designs were rare. Therefore, a serious risk for bias exists in both directions (i.e., in favor of and against the bilingual advantage). To conclude, we found some evidence for a bilingual advantage in cognitive control; however, if significant progress is to be made, better study designs, bigger data, and more longitudinal studies are needed.

Measuring the Timing of the Bilingual Advantage

Empirical evidence has supported the idea that the bilingual advantage is a question of nuanced differences between bilinguals and monolinguals. In this article, I review findings from studies using eye tracking, mouse tracking, and event-related potentials (ERPs) which are particularly suited to measure time. Understanding the timing of the processes underlying executive function is crucial in evaluating the intricacies of the bilingual mind. Furthermore, I provide recommendations on how to best use these timing techniques to compare bilinguals and monolinguals. Temporal differences can characterize ongoing discussions of the bilingual advantage and help explain conflicting findings. Methodological and analytical innovations to better investigate the timing of the cognitive processes at play will inform a wide range of areas in cognitive science.