Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-skm99 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-25T13:03:53.376Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Language dominance predicts cognate effects and inhibitory control in young adult bilinguals

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 October 2018

JONATHAN J.D. ROBINSON ANTHONY  and
HENRIKE K. BLUMENFELD Open the ORCID record for HENRIKE K. BLUMENFELD [Opens in a new window]
JONATHAN J.D. ROBINSON ANTHONY*
Affiliation:
San Diego State University/University of California, San Diego, Joint Doctoral Program in Language & Communicative Disorders
HENRIKE K. BLUMENFELD
Affiliation:
San Diego State University
*
Address for correspondence: Jonathan J.D. Robinson Anthony, 5500 Campanile Dr. San Diego, CA 92182-1518jrobinsonanthony@sdsu.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Determining bilingual status has been complicated by varying interpretations of what it means to be bilingual and how to quantify bilingual experience. We examined multiple indices of language dominance (self-reported proficiency, self-reported exposure, expressive language knowledge, receptive language knowledge, and a hybrid), and whether these profiles related to performance on linguistic and cognitive tasks. Participants were administered receptive and expressive vocabulary tasks in English and Spanish, and a nonlinguistic spatial Stroop task. Analyses revealed a relation between dominance profiles and cognate and nonlinguistic Stroop effects, with somewhat different patterns emerging across measures of language dominance and variable type (continuous, categorical). Only a hybrid definition of language dominance accounted for cognate effects in the dominant language, as well as nonlinguistic spatial Stroop effects. Findings suggest that nuanced effects, such as cross-linguistic cognate effects in a dominant language and cognitive control abilities, may be particularly sensitive to operational definitions of language status.

Keywords

language dominancecognate effectnonlinguistic spatial Stroop effectinhibitory control
Type
Research Article
Information
Bilingualism: Language and Cognition , Volume 22 , Issue 5 , November 2019 , pp. 1068 - 1084
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

We thank Dr. Georg Matt for input on the statistical analyses, as well as members of the SDSU Bilingualism and Cognition Lab, especially Claire Duffy, Maryanne Sullivan, Katie Rodgers, Fernanda Manriquez, Amy Tellez, Stephanie Riera, Dorit Segal, Kayla Glaser, and Annie Ochoa. We also thank Dr. Ludovica Serratrice, Dr. Anat Prior and two anonymous reviewers for valuable feedback on a previous version of this manuscript. This project was in part supported by a California State University Sally Casanova Summer Research Scholarship, the Sheila and Jeffrey Lipinsky Family Doctoral Fellowship, and a San Diego Fellowship from UCSD to JRA, and a SDSU University Grant and Summer Undergraduate Research Grant to HB.

References

Amengual, M. (2016). The perception and production of language-specific mid-vowel contrasts: Shifting the focus to the bilingual individual in early language input conditions. International Journal of Bilingualism, 20 (2), 133–152.Google Scholar
American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA). (1996). Guidelines for audiologic screening: Panel on audiologic assessment. Rockville, MD: American Speech-Language-Hearing Association.Google Scholar
Bahrick, H. P., Hall, L. K., Goggin, J. P., Bahrick, L. E., & Berger, S. A. (1994). Fifty years of language maintenance and language dominance in bilingual Hispanic immigrants. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 123 (3), 264–283.Google Scholar
Basnight-Brown, D. M., & Altarriba, J. (2007). Differences in semantic and translation priming across languages: The role of language direction and language dominance. Memory & Cognition, 35 (5), 953–965.Google Scholar
Bedore, L. M., Peña, E. D., Griffin, Z. M., & Hixon, J. G. (2016). Effects of age of English exposure, current input/output, and grade on bilingual language performance. Journal of Child Language, 43 (3), 687–706.Google Scholar
Bedore, L. M., Peña, E. D., Summers, C. L., Boerger, K. M., Resendiz, M. D., Greene, K., Bohman, T.M., & Gillam, R. B. (2012). The measure matters: Language dominance profiles across measures in Spanish–English bilingual children. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 15 (03), 616–629.Google Scholar
Bialystok, E., Craik, F. I., Klein, R., & Viswanathan, M. (2004). Bilingualism, aging, and cognitive control: evidence from the Simon task. Psychology and Aging, 19 (2), 290.Google Scholar
Bialystok, E., & Feng, X. (2009). Language proficiency and executive control in proactive interference: Evidence from monolingual and bilingual children and adults. Brain and Language, 109 (2), 93–100.Google Scholar
Blumenfeld, H. K., Bobb, S. C., & Marian, V. (2016). The role of language proficiency, cognate status, and word frequency in assessment of verbal fluency in Spanish–English bilinguals. International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 18 (2), 190–201.Google Scholar
Blumenfeld, H. K., & Marian, V. (2011). Bilingualism influences inhibitory control in auditory comprehension. Cognition, 118 (2), 245–257.Google Scholar
Blumenfeld, H. K., & Marian, V. (2013). Parallel language activation and cognitive control during spoken word recognition in bilinguals. Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 25 (5), 547–567.Google Scholar
Blumenfeld, H. K., & Marian, V. (2014). Cognitive control in bilinguals: Advantages in Stimulus–Stimulus inhibition. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 17 (3), 610–629.Google Scholar
Bullock, B. E., Toribio, A. J., González, V., & Dalola, A. (2006). Language dominance and performance outcomes in bilingual pronunciation. Proceedings of the 8th generative approaches to second language acquisition conference (pp. 9–16). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.Google Scholar
Carlson, S. M., & Meltzoff, A. N. (2008). Bilingual experience and executive functioning in young children. Developmental Science, 11 (2), 282–298.Google Scholar
Costa, A., Caramazza, A., & Sebastián-Gallés, N. (2000). The cognate facilitation effect: implications for models of lexical access. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 26 (5), 1283.Google Scholar
Costa, A., Hernández, M., Costa-Faidella, J., & Sebastián-Gallés, N. (2009). On the bilingual advantage in conflict processing: Now you see it, now you don't. Cognition, 113 (2), 135–149.Google Scholar
Costa, A., & Santesteban, M. (2004). Lexical access in bilingual speech production: Evidence from language switching in highly proficient bilinguals and L2 learners. Journal of Memory and Language, 50 (4), 491–511.Google Scholar
Costa, A., Santesteban, M., & Caño, A. (2005). On the facilitatory effects of cognate words in bilingual speech production. Brain and Language, 94 (1), 94–103.Google Scholar
Crivello, C., Kuzyk, O., Rodrigues, M., Friend, M., Zesiger, P., & Poulin-Dubois, D. (2016). The effects of bilingual growth on toddlers’ executive function. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 141, 121–132.Google Scholar
Cromdal, J. (1999). Childhood bilingualism and metalinguistic skills: Analysis and control in young Swedish–English bilinguals. Applied Psycholinguistics, 20 (1), 1–20.Google Scholar
de Bruin, A., Roelofs, A., Dijkstra, T., & FitzPatrick, I. (2014). Domain-general inhibition areas of the brain are involved in language switching: FMRI evidence from trilingual speakers. NeuroImage, 90, 348–359.Google Scholar
De Cat, C., Gusnanto, A., & Serratrice, L. (2018). Identifying a threshold for the executive function advantage in bilingual children. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 40 (1), 119–151.Google Scholar
de Groot, A., & Keijzer, R. (2000). What is hard to learn is easy to forget: The roles of word concreteness, cognate status, and word frequency in foreign-language vocabulary learning and forgetting. Language Learning, 50 (1), 1–56.Google Scholar
Diamond, A. (2013). Executive functions. Annual Review of Psychology, 64, 135–168.Google Scholar
Dickinson, D. K., McCabe, A., Clark-Chiarelli, N., & Wolf, A. (2004). Cross-language transfer of phonological awareness in low-income Spanish and English bilingual preschool children. Applied Psycholinguistics. 25 (03), 323–347.Google Scholar
Dijkstra, T., van Hell, J. G., & Brenders, P. (2015). Sentence context effects in bilingual word recognition: Cognate status, sentence language, and semantic constraint. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 18 (4), 597–613.Google Scholar
Dijkstra, T., & van Heuven, W. J. (2002). The architecture of the bilingual word recognition system: From identification to decision. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 5 (03), 175–197.Google Scholar
Dijkstra, T., van Heuven, W. J., & Grainger, J. (1998). Simulating cross-language competition with the bilingual interactive activation model. Psychologica Belgica. 38 (3–4), 177–196.Google Scholar
Dunn, L. M., & Dunn, L. M. (1997). PPVT-III: Peabody picture vocabulary test. American Guidance Service, Circle Pines, MN: Pearson Publishing.Google Scholar
Dunn, L. M., Lugo, P., & Dunn, L. M. (1997). Vocabulario en imágenes Peabody (TVIP). American Guidance Service, Circle Pines, MN: Pearson Publishing.Google Scholar
Dunn, A. L., & Tree, J. E. F. (2009). A quick, gradient bilingual dominance scale. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 12 (03), 273–289.Google Scholar
Fenson, L., Dale, P., Reznick, J. S., Thal, D., Bates, E., Hartung, J., Pethick, S., & Reilly, J. (1993). The MacArthur Communicative Development Inventories: User's guide and technical manual San Diego, CA: Singular Publishing Group.Google Scholar
Flege, J. E., MacKay, I. R., & Piske, T. (2002). Assessing bilingual dominance. Applied Psycholinguistics, 23 (04), 567–598.Google Scholar
Friel, B. M., & Kennison, S. M. (2001). Identifying German–English cognates, false cognates, and non-cognates: Methodological issues and descriptive norms. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 4 (3), 249–274.Google Scholar
Gathercole, V. C. M., & Thomas, E. M. (2009). Bilingual first-language development: Dominant language takeover, threatened minority language take-up. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 12 (2), 213–237.Google Scholar
Giezen, M. R., Blumenfeld, H. K., Shook, A., Marian, V., & Emmorey, K. (2015). Parallel language activation and inhibitory control in bimodal bilinguals. Cognition, 141, 9–25.Google Scholar
Gollan, T. H., Fennema-Notestine, C., Montoya, R. I., & Jernigan, T. L. (2007). The bilingual effect on Boston Naming Test performance. Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society, 13 (2), 197–208.Google Scholar
Gollan, T. H., Weissberger, G. H., Runnqvist, E., Montoya, R. I., & Cera, C. M. (2012). Self-ratings of spoken language dominance: A multi-lingual naming test (MINT) and preliminary norms for young and aging Spanish–English bilinguals. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 15 (3), 594.Google Scholar
Goral, M., Campanelli, L., & Spiro, A. (2015). Language dominance and inhibition abilities in bilingual older adults. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 18 (1), 79–89.Google Scholar
Grant, A., & Dennis, N. (2017). Increased processing speed in young adult bilinguals: evidence from source memory judgments. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 20 (2), 327–336.Google Scholar
Green, D. W. (1986). Control, activation, and resource: A framework and a model for the control of speech in bilinguals. Brain and Language, 27 (2), 210–223.Google Scholar
Green, D. W. (1998). Mental control of the bilingual lexico-semantic system. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 1 (02), 67–81.Google Scholar
Hakuta, K., & Garcia, E. E. (1989). Bilingualism and education. American Psychologist, 44 (2), 374–379.Google Scholar
Hernández, M., Costa, A., Fuentes, L. J., Vivas, A. B., & Sebastián-Gallés, N. (2010). The impact of bilingualism on the executive control and orienting networks of attention. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 13 (3), 315–325.Google Scholar
Hervais-Adelman, A. G., Moser-Mercer, B., & Golestani, N. (2011). Executive control of language in the bilingual brain: Integrating the evidence from neuroimaging to neuropsychology. Frontiers in Psychology, 2, 234. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2011.00234.Google Scholar
Hilchey, M. D., & Klein, R. M. (2011). Are there bilingual advantages on nonlinguistic interference tasks? Implications for the plasticity of executive control processes. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 18 (4), 625–658.Google Scholar
Hoshino, N., & Kroll, J. F. (2008). Cognate effects in picture naming: Does cross-language activation survive a change of script?. Cognition, 106 (1), 501–511.Google Scholar
Hughes, M. M., Linck, J. A., Bowles, A. R., Koeth, J. T., & Bunting, M. F. (2014). Alternatives to switch-cost scoring in the task-switching paradigm: Their reliability and increased validity. Behavior Research Methods, 46 (3), 702–721.Google Scholar
Incera, S., & McLennan, C. T. (2018). Bilingualism and age are continuous variables that influence executive function. Aging, Neuropsychology, and Cognition, 25 (3), 443–463.Google Scholar
Jia, G., & Aaronson, D. (1999). Age differences in second language acquisition: The dominant language switch and maintenance hypothesis. In Proceedings of the 23rd Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development (Vol. 23, pp. 301–312).Google Scholar
Jończyk, R., Boutonnet, B., Musiał, K., Hoemann, K., & Thierry, G. (2016). The bilingual brain turns a blind eye to negative statements in the second language. Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience, 16 (3), 527–540.Google Scholar
Kaushanskaya, M., Blumenfeld, H.K., & Marian (under review). The Language Experience and Proficiency Questionnaire (LEAP-Q): 10 years later.Google Scholar
Kaushanskaya, M., Gross, M., & Buac, M. (2014). Effects of classroom bilingualism on task-shifting, verbal memory, and word learning in children. Developmental Science, 17 (4), 564–583.Google Scholar
Kaushanskaya, M., & Marian, V. (2009a). The bilingual advantage in novel word learning. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 16 (4), 705–710.Google Scholar
Kaushanskaya, M., & Marian, V. (2009b). Bilingualism reduces native-language interference during novel-word learning. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 35 (3), 829.Google Scholar
Kelley, A., & Kohnert, K. (2012). Is there a cognate advantage for typically developing Spanish-speaking English-language learners?. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 43 (2), 191–204.Google Scholar
Kohnert, K., Windsor, J., & Miller, R. (2004). Crossing borders: Recognition of Spanish words by English-speaking children with and without language impairment. Applied Psycholinguistics, 25 (4), 543–564.Google Scholar
Kornblum, S., Hasbroucq, T., & Osman, A. (1990). Dimensional overlap: cognitive basis for stimulus-response compatibility–a model and taxonomy. Psychological Review, 97 (2), 253.Google Scholar
Kroll, J. F., & Stewart, E. (1994). Category interference in translation and picture naming: Evidence for asymmetric connections between bilingual memory representations. Journal of Memory and Language, 33 (2), 149–174.Google Scholar
Lemhöfer, K., Dijkstra, T., & Michel, M. (2004). Three languages, one ECHO: Cognate effects in trilingual word recognition. Language and Cognitive Processes, 19 (5), 585–611.Google Scholar
Lemmon, C. R., & Goggin, J. P. (1989). The measurement of bilingualism and its relationship to cognitive ability. Applied Psycholinguistics, 10 (02), 133–155.Google Scholar
Li, P., Sepanski, S., & Zhao, X. (2006). Language history questionnaire: A web-based interface for bilingual research. Behavior Research Methods, 38 (2), 202–210.Google Scholar
Li, P., Zhang, F., Tsai, E., & Puls, B. (2014). Language history questionnaire (LHQ 2.0): A new dynamic web-based research tool. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 17 (3), 673–680.Google Scholar
Lim, V. P., Lincoln, M., Chan, Y. H., & Onslow, M. (2008). Stuttering in English–Mandarin bilingual speakers: The influence of language dominance on stuttering severity. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 51 (6), 1522–1537.Google Scholar
Liu, H., Rossi, S., Zhou, H., & Chen, B. (2014). Electrophysiological evidence for domain-general inhibitory control during bilingual language switching. PLoS One, 9 (10).Google Scholar
Luk, G., & Bialystok, E. (2013). Bilingualism is not a categorical variable: Interaction between language proficiency and usage. Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 25 (5), 605–621.Google Scholar
MacWhinney, B. (2012). The logic of the Unified Model. In Gass, S., & Mackey, A. (Eds.), Handbook of second language acquisition. New York, NY: Routledge.Google Scholar
Mägiste, E. (1992). Second language learning in elementary and high school students. European Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 4 (4), 355–365.Google Scholar
Marian, V., Blumenfeld, H. K., & Kaushanskaya, M. (2007). The Language Experience and Proficiency Questionnaire (LEAP-Q): Assessing language profiles in bilinguals and multilinguals. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 50 (4), 940–967.Google Scholar
Martin-Rhee, M. M., & Bialystok, E. (2008). The development of two types of inhibitory control in monolingual and bilingual children. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 11 (1), 81–93.Google Scholar
Maxwell, S. E., & Delaney, H. D. (2004). Designing experiments and analyzing data (2nd edition). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar
Mercier, J., Pivneva, I., & Titone, D. (2014). Individual differences in inhibitory control relate to bilingual spoken word processing. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 17 (1), 89–117.Google Scholar
Miller, N. A., & Kroll, J. F. (2002). Stroop effects in bilingual translation. Memory & Cognition, 30 (4), 614–628.Google Scholar
Muñoz-Sandoval, A. F., Woodcock, R. W., McGrew, K. S., & Mather, N. (2005). Batería III pruebas de aprovechamiento. Itasca, IL: Riverside Publishing.Google Scholar
Paap, K. R., & Greenberg, Z. I. (2013). There is no coherent evidence for a bilingual advantage in executive processing. Cognitive Psychology, 66 (2), 232–258.Google Scholar
Paradis, J., Crago, M., Genesee, F., & Rice, M. (2003). French-English bilingual children with SLI: How do they compare with their monolingual peers? Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 46 (1), 113–127.Google Scholar
Pérez, A. M., Peña, E. D., & Bedore, L. M. (2010). Cognates facilitate word recognition in young Spanish–English bilinguals’ test performance. Early Childhood Services (San Diego, CA), 4 (1), 55.Google Scholar
Potapova, I., Blumenfeld, H.K., & Pruitt-Lord, S. (2015). Cognate identification methods: Impacts on the cognate advantage in adult and child Spanish–English bilinguals. International Journal of Bilingualism, 20 (6), 714–731. doi: 10.1177/1367006915586586Google Scholar
Poulin-Dubois, D., Blaye, A., Coutya, J., & Bialystok, E. (2011). The effects of bilingualism on toddlers’ executive functioning. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 108 (3), 567–579.Google Scholar
Prior, A., Degani, T., Awawdy, S., Yassin, R., & Korem, N. (2017). Is susceptibility to cross-language interference domain specific? Cognition, 165, 10–25.Google Scholar
Prior, A., Goldwasser, N., Ravet-Hirsh, R., & Schwartz, M. (2016). Executive functions in bilingual children: Is there a role for language balance? Cognitive Control and Consequences in the Multilingual Mind, Ed. Schwieter, J. W.. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing, 323–350.Google Scholar
Rosselli, M., Ardila, A., Lalwani, L. N., & Vélez-Uribe, I. (2016). The effect of language proficiency on executive functions in balanced and unbalanced Spanish–English bilinguals. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 19 (3), 489–503.Google Scholar
Rosselli, M., Ardila, A., Jurado, M. B., & Salvatierra, J. L. (2014). Cognate facilitation effect in balanced and non-balanced Spanish–English bilinguals using the Boston Naming Test. International Journal of Bilingualism, 18 (6), 649–662.Google Scholar
Sandoval, T. C., Gollan, T. H., Ferreira, V. S., & Salmon, D. P. (2010). What causes the bilingual disadvantage in verbal fluency? The dual-task analogy. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 13 (2), 231–252.Google Scholar
Sheng, L., Lu, Y., & Gollan, T. H. (2014). Assessing language dominance in Mandarin–English bilinguals: Convergence and divergence between subjective and objective measures. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 17 (2), 364–383.Google Scholar
Shokri, S., Akbarfahimi, M., Zarei, M. A., Hosseini, S. G., & Farhadian, M. (2016). The influence of age and gender on executive functions of the brain in an Iranian sample of healthy adults. Journal of Advanced Medical Sciences and Applied Technologies, 2 (3), 247–256.Google Scholar
Singh, N., & Mishra, R. K. (2013). Second language proficiency modulates conflict-monitoring in an oculomotor Stroop task: evidence from Hindi-English bilinguals. Frontiers in Psychology, 4, 322.Google Scholar
Thomas-Sunesson, D., Hakuta, K., & Bialystok, E. (2018). Degree of bilingualism modifies executive control in Hispanic children in the USA. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 21 (2), 197–206.Google Scholar
Titone, D., Libben, M., Mercier, J., Whitford, V., & Pivneva, I. (2011). Bilingual lexical access during L1 sentence reading: The effects of L2 knowledge, semantic constraint, and L1–L2 intermixing. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 37 (6), 1412.Google Scholar
Tzelgov, J., Henik, A., & Leiser, D. (1990). Controlling Stroop interference: Evidence from a bilingual task. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 16 (5), 760–771.Google Scholar
Upadhayay, N., & Guragain, S. (2014). Comparison of cognitive functions between male and female medical students: a pilot study. Journal of Clinical and Diagnostic Research 8 (6), BC12.Google Scholar
Weissberger, G. H., Gollan, T. H., Bondi, M. W., Clark, L. R., & Wierenga, C. E. (2015). Language and task switching in the bilingual brain: Bilinguals are staying, not switching, experts. Neuropsychologia, 66, 193–203.Google Scholar
Woodcock, R. W., McGrew, K. S., & Mather, N. (2001). Woodcock-Johnson tests of achievement. Itasca, IL: Riverside Publishing.Google Scholar
Yip, V., & Matthews, S. (2006). Assessing language dominance in bilingual acquisition: A case for mean length utterance differentials. Language Assessment Quarterly: An International Journal, 3 (2), 97–116.Google Scholar
Yoshida, H., Tran, D. N., Benitez, V., & Kuwabara, M. (2011). Inhibition and adjective learning in bilingual and monolingual children. Frontiers in Psychology, 2, 210.Google Scholar
Yow, W. Q., & Li, X. (2015). Balanced bilingualism and early age of second language acquisition as the underlying mechanisms of a bilingual executive control advantage: why variations in bilingual experiences matter. Frontiers in Psychology, 6, 164.Google Scholar
Yudes, C., Macizo, P., & Bajo, T. (2010). Cognate effects in bilingual language comprehension tasks. Neuroreport, 21 (7), 507–512.Google Scholar
Zied, K. M., Phillipe, A., Karine, P., Valerie, H. T., Ghislaine, A., & Arnaud, R. (2004). Bilingualism and adult differences in inhibitory mechanisms: Evidence from a bilingual Stroop task. Brain and Cognition, 54 (3), 254–256.Google Scholar