Individual and Sociolinguistic Differences in Language Background Predict Stroop Performance

To examine how differences in language experience and sociolinguistic context impact cognitive control, 146 Spanish-English bilingual participants were tested on a non-linguistic Stroop arrows task. Dimensions of language experience included a continuum of L2 proficiency, exposure, age of L2 acquisition, and English receptive vocabulary, along with cognitive non-verbal reasoning. Sociolinguistic context varied with more exposure to Spanish for participants in Southern California (SoCal) than in the Midwest. The task involved perceptual stimulus-stimulus conflict within stimulus features (e.g., right-pointing arrow on the left side of a display). Reaction times to trials where arrow location and direction matched (congruent), mismatched (incongruent), or arrow location was centered (neutral) were used to calculate Stroop (incongruent-congruent), facilitation (neutral-congruent), and inhibition (incongruent-neutral) effects. When examining performance on a continuum of bilingual language experience, individual differences in linguistic background (i.e., L2 proficiency and exposure, receptive vocabulary) and cognitive abilities (i.e., non-verbal reasoning abilities) predicted more efficient performance on the Stroop task. Across sociolinguistic contexts, findings revealed better performance via smaller Stroop and facilitation effects in the Midwest than in SoCal, and no group difference on the inhibition effect. We conclude that research on the cognitive consequences of bilingualism must consider a continuum of language experiences and must be situated in broader naturalistic contexts that take into account the sociolinguistic environments of language use.

Language dominance predicts cognate effects and metalinguistic awareness in preschool bilinguals

The current work investigates whether language dominance predicts transfer of skills across cognitive-linguistic levels from the native language (Spanish) to the second language (English) in bilingual preschoolers. Sensitivity to cognates (elephant/elefante in English/Spanish) and metalinguistic awareness (MLA) have both been shown to transfer from the dominant to the nondominant language. Examining these types of transfer together using a continuous measure of language dominance may allow us to better understand the effect of the home language in children learning a majority language in preschool. Forty-six preschool-aged, Spanish-English bilinguals completed English receptive vocabulary and metalinguistic tasks indexing cognate effects and MLA. Language dominance was found to predict crosslinguistic (cognate) facilitation from Spanish to English. In addition, MLA skills also transferred from Spanish to English for children with lower English proficiency, and no transfer of MLA was evident for children with higher English proficiency. Altogether, findings suggest that transfer from a dominant first language to a nondominant second language happens at linguistic and cognitive-linguistic levels in preschoolers, although possibly influenced by second language proficiency. The current study has implications for supporting the home language for holistic cognitive-linguistic development.