Working memory development in monolingual and bilingual children.

doi:10.1016/J.JECP.2012.09.002

Home
/
Papers
/
Working memory development in monolingual and bilingual children.

Journal Article•DOI•

Working memory development in monolingual and bilingual children.

Julia Morales, Alejandra Calvo¹, Ellen Bialystok¹•Institutions (1)

York University¹

01 Feb 2013-Journal of Experimental Child Psychology (NIH Public Access)-Vol. 114, Iss: 2, pp 187-202

TL;DR: Bilinguals outperformed monolinguals overall, but again there were larger language group effects in conditions that included more demanding executive function requirements.

read less

About: This article is published in Journal of Experimental Child Psychology.The article was published on 2013-02-01 and is currently open access. It has received 382 citations till now. The article focuses on the topics: Working memory & Short-term memory.

...read moreread less

Citations

PDF

Open Access

More filters

Journal Article•DOI•

The Bilingual Adaptation: How Minds Accommodate Experience

[...]

Ellen Bialystok¹•Institutions (1)

York University¹

01 Mar 2017-Psychological Bulletin

TL;DR: Although most of the research discussed in the review reports some relation between bilingualism and cognitive or brain outcomes, several areas of research largely fail to show these effects and an account based on "executive attention" is proposed to explain the range of research findings.

...read moreread less

Abstract: According to some estimates, more than half of the world's population is multilingual to some extent. Because of the centrality of language use to human experience and the deep connections between linguistic and nonlinguistic processing, it would not be surprising to find that there are interactions between bilingualism and cognitive and brain processes. The present review uses the framework of experience-dependent plasticity to evaluate the evidence for systematic modifications of brain and cognitive systems that can be attributed to bilingualism. The review describes studies investigating the relation between bilingualism and cognition in infants and children, younger and older adults, and patients, using both behavioral and neuroimaging methods. Excluded are studies whose outcomes focus primarily on linguistic abilities because of their more peripheral contribution to the central question regarding experience-dependent changes to cognition. Although most of the research discussed in the review reports some relation between bilingualism and cognitive or brain outcomes, several areas of research, notably behavioral studies with young adults, largely fail to show these effects. These discrepancies are discussed and considered in terms of methodological and conceptual issues. The final section proposes an account based on "executive attention" to explain the range of research findings and to set out an agenda for the next steps in this field. (PsycINFO Database Record

...read moreread less

509 citations

Cites background from "Working memory development in monol..."

...These results linking SES to later outcomes are reliable and have been widely reproduced, although even here there are studies that fail to find significant effects (Waber et al., 2007; Wiebe, Espy, & Charak, 2008)....
[...]
...Compelling arguments have been proposed for the role of health, nutrition, prenatal factors, cognitive stimulation, and stress that are correlated with SES, and all are undoubtedly relevant (Hackman, Farah, & Meaney, 2010; Noble, Norman, & Farah, 2005)....
[...]
...Again, detailed studies on the impact of experience on attention appear to be a fruitful avenue of research; as in research on bilingualism, attentional control appears to be a crucial underlying difference between high and low SES groups (Stevens, Lauinger, & Neville, 2009)....
[...]
...Morton and Harper (2007) argued that socioeconomic status (SES) and not bilingualism was the relevant variable in early studies showing better performance by bilingual children on executive function tasks....
[...]
...There are well-documented example of the effects of SES on cognitive and brain outcomes, including executive function development (Noble, McCandliss, & Farah, 2007), and the effects of these early environments extend beyond cognitive function to include long-term outcomes for achievement, wealth, and health (Duncan, Ziol-Guest, & Kalil, 2010)....
[...]

Journal Article•DOI•

Independent effects of bilingualism and socioeconomic status on language ability and executive functioning

[...]

Alejandra Calvo¹, Ellen Bialystok¹•Institutions (1)

York University¹

01 Mar 2014-Cognition

TL;DR: Each of SES and bilingualism contribute significantly and independently to children's development irrespective of the child's level on the other factor.

...read moreread less

333 citations

Journal Article•DOI•

The cognitive development of young dual language learners: A critical review

[...]

Raluca Barac¹, Ellen Bialystok¹, Dina C. Castro², Marta Sanchez³•Institutions (3)

Keele University¹, Arizona State University², Duke University³

01 Oct 2014-Early Childhood Research Quarterly

TL;DR: The existing evidence points to areas of cognitive development in bilingual children where findings are robust or inconclusive, and reveals variables that influence performance.

...read moreread less

328 citations

Cites background or result from "Working memory development in monol..."

...Working memory is one executive control process that has een relatively less studied and thus the evidence is less clear. he existing findings, however, suggest that bilinguals outperform onolinguals when there are increases in the executive demands f the working memory tasks (Morales et al., 2013)....
[...]
...In contrast, in the study by Morales and colleagues (Morales et al., 2013), 5-year-old bilingual children in Canada outperformed monolinguals on tasks of working memory that posed additional executive control demands....
[...]
...…at present, there is too little research on working memory in bilingual children to draw firm conclusions, the existing evidence suggests that a bilingual advantage in working memory is especially evident when the task contains high levels of executive function demands (Morales et al., 2013)....
[...]

Journal Article•DOI•

The benefits of being bilingual: working memory in bilingual Turkish-Dutch children.

[...]

Elma Blom¹, Aylin C. Küntay², Aylin C. Küntay¹, Marielle H. Messer¹, Josje Verhagen¹, Paul P.M. Leseman¹ - Show less +2 more•Institutions (2)

Utrecht University¹, Koç University²

01 Dec 2014-Journal of Experimental Child Psychology

TL;DR: It was found that the bilingual Turkish-Dutch children showed cognitive gains in visuospatial and verbal working memory tests when SES and vocabulary were controlled, in particular on tests that require processing and not merely storage.

...read moreread less

262 citations

Journal Article•DOI•

Bilingualism, Mind, and Brain.

[...]

Judith F. Kroll¹, Paola E. Dussias¹, Kinsey Bice¹, Lauren Perrotti¹•Institutions (1)

Pennsylvania State University¹

14 Jan 2015-Social Science Research Network

TL;DR: This article showed that bilingualism helps reveal the fundamental architecture and mechanisms of language processing that are otherwise hidden in monolingual speakers, and that all of the languages that are known and used become part of the same language system.

...read moreread less

Abstract: The use of two or more languages is common in most of the world. Yet, until recently, bilingualism was considered to be a complicating factor for language processing, cognition, and the brain. The past 20 years have witnessed an upsurge of research on bilingualism to examine language acquisition and processing, their cognitive and neural bases, and the consequences that bilingualism holds for cognition and the brain over the life span. Contrary to the view that bilingualism complicates the language system, this new research demonstrates that all of the languages that are known and used become part of the same language system. The interactions that arise when two languages are in play have consequences for the mind and the brain and, indeed, for language processing itself, but those consequences are not additive. Thus, bilingualism helps reveal the fundamental architecture and mechanisms of language processing that are otherwise hidden in monolingual speakers.

...read moreread less

227 citations

Cites background or methods from "Working memory development in monol..."

...Critically,Morales et al. (2013b) found that a bilingual advantagewas not present in general but depended on the interaction between conditions....
[...]
...…are particularly beneficial to individuals at points in their liveswhen theymaybe vulnerable, especially during early development (e.g., Morales et al. 2013a) and later in life, when ordinary cognitive decline or the presence of pathology places greater demands on the cognitive system…...
[...]
...Morales et al. (2013b), using different measures of control, examined the performance of bilinguals and monolinguals on proactive and reactive components of inhibition....
[...]

1
2
3
4
…
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77

Collapse

References

PDF

Open Access

More filters

Journal Article•DOI•

The unity and diversity of executive functions and their contributions to complex "Frontal Lobe" tasks: a latent variable analysis.

[...]

Akira Miyake¹, Naomi P. Friedman¹, Michael J. Emerson¹, Alexander H. Witzki¹, Amy Howerter¹, Tor D. Wager² - Show less +2 more•Institutions (2)

University of Colorado Boulder¹, University of Michigan²

01 Aug 2000-Cognitive Psychology

TL;DR: The results suggest that it is important to recognize both the unity and diversity ofExecutive functions and that latent variable analysis is a useful approach to studying the organization and roles of executive functions.

...read moreread less

12,182 citations

Reference Entry•DOI•

Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test

[...]

Jonathan M. Campbell¹, Aila K. Dommestrup¹•Institutions (1)

University of Georgia¹

30 Jan 2010

TL;DR: The Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT) as discussed by the authors is an individually administered, norm-referenced test of single-word receptive (or hearing) vocabulary.

...read moreread less

Abstract: The Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT) is an individually administered, norm-referenced test of single-word receptive (or hearing) vocabulary. Originally published in 1959, the PPVT has been revised several times and currently exists in its fourth edition (PPVT-4; Dunn & Dunn, 2007). In addition to assessing receptive vocabulary, test authors report that the PPVT-4 may be used as a means of estimating verbal development (Dunn & Dunn, 2007). Normed with a sample of 3,540 individuals ages 2½ to 90 representative of March 2004 U.S. census data, the PPVT-4 features two parallel forms (Form A and Form B), each consisting of 228 test items. Items consist of two stimuli, a word spoken by the examiner and four pictures on a single card; the examinee selects the picture that best represents the examiner's spoken word. Raw scores may be translated into age-based standard scores (i.e., M = 100; SD = 15), percentile ranks, stanines, age equivalents, and grade equivalents. Keywords: receptive language; language screener

...read moreread less

4,281 citations

Journal Article•DOI•

[...]

Eleanor A. Maguire¹, David G. Gadian, Ingrid S. Johnsrude, Catriona D. Good, John Ashburner, Richard S. J. Frackowiak, Chris D. Frith - Show less +3 more•Institutions (1)

University College London¹

11 Apr 2000-Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America

TL;DR: Structural MRIs of the brains of humans with extensive navigation experience, licensed London taxi drivers, were analyzed and compared with those of control subjects who did not drive taxis, finding a capacity for local plastic change in the structure of the healthy adult human brain in response to environmental demands.

...read moreread less

Abstract: Structural MRIs of the brains of humans with extensive navigation experience, licensed London taxi drivers, were analyzed and compared with those of control subjects who did not drive taxis. The posterior hippocampi of taxi drivers were significantly larger relative to those of control subjects. A more anterior hippocampal region was larger in control subjects than in taxi drivers. Hippocampal volume correlated with the amount of time spent as a taxi driver (positively in the posterior and negatively in the anterior hippocampus). These data are in accordance with the idea that the posterior hippocampus stores a spatial representation of the environment and can expand regionally to accommodate elaboration of this representation in people with a high dependence on navigational skills. It seems that there is a capacity for local plastic change in the structure of the healthy adult human brain in response to environmental demands.

...read moreread less

2,799 citations

"Working memory development in monol..." refers background in this paper

...It is now recognized that a variety of cognitively demanding experiences modulate brain development and, by extension, modify cognitive functioning (e.g., Green & Bavelier, 2003; Maguire et al., 2000; Polk & Farah, 1998; Salthouse & Mitchell, 1990)....
[...]

Journal Article•DOI•

The Nature and Organization of Individual Differences in Executive Functions: Four General Conclusions

[...]

Akira Miyake¹, Naomi P. Friedman¹•Institutions (1)

University of Colorado Boulder¹

31 Jan 2012-Current Directions in Psychological Science

TL;DR: It is argued that individual differences in EFs, as measured with simple laboratory tasks, show both unity and diversity and are related to various clinically and societally important phenomena, and show some developmental stability.

...read moreread less

Abstract: Executive functions (EFs)—a set of general-purpose control processes that regulate one’s thoughts and behaviors—have become a popular research topic lately and have been studied in many subdisciplines of psychological science. This article summarizes the EF research that our group has conducted to understand the nature of individual differences in EFs and their cognitive and biological underpinnings. In the context of a new theoretical framework that we have been developing (the unity/diversity framework), we describe four general conclusions that have emerged. Specifically, we argue that individual differences in EFs, as measured with simple laboratory tasks, (a) show both unity and diversity (different EFs are correlated yet separable), (b) reflect substantial genetic contributions, (c) are related to various clinically and societally important phenomena, and (d) show some developmental stability.

...read moreread less

2,776 citations

"Working memory development in monol..." refers background or result in this paper

...Recently, Miyake and Friedman (2012) took a broader view and proposed that the executive function is characterized by ‘‘unity and diversity,’’ that is, a set of correlated but separable abilities....
[...]
...This view of a more integrated set of abilities for the executive function is consistent with the position offered by Miyake and Friedman (2012), arguing for both unity and diversity of the traditional components of executive control....
[...]
...This pattern of results is consistent with the view of unity and diversity described by Miyake and Friedman (2012) and contributes to our understanding of the development of working memory in monolingual and bilingual children and to the relation between working memory and the other executive…...
[...]

Journal Article•DOI•

Relating effortful control, executive function, and false belief understanding to emerging math and literacy ability in kindergarten

[...]

Clancy Blair¹, Rachel Peters Razza¹•Institutions (1)

Pennsylvania State University¹

01 Mar 2007-Child Development

TL;DR: Results indicated that the various aspects of child self-regulation accounted for unique variance in the academic outcomes independent of general intelligence and that the inhibitory control aspect of executive function was a prominent correlate of both early math and reading ability.

...read moreread less

Abstract: This study examined the role of self-regulation in emerging academic ability in one hundred and forty-one 3- to 5-year-old children from low-income homes. Measures of effortful control, false belief understanding, and the inhibitory control and attention-shifting aspects of executive function in preschool were related to measures of math and literacy ability in kindergarten. Results indicated that the various aspects of child self-regulation accounted for unique variance in the academic outcomes independent of general intelligence and that the inhibitory control aspect of executive function was a prominent correlate of both early math and reading ability. Findings suggest that curricula designed to improve self-regulation skills as well as enhance early academic abilities may be most effective in helping children succeed in school.

...read moreread less

2,760 citations

Additional excerpts

...…Pickering, Knight, & Stegmann, 2004; Savage, Cornish, Manly, & Hollis, 2006) and later language and math achievement (Barrouillet & Lepine, 2005; Blair & Razza, 2007; Bull & Scerif, 2001; Espy et al., 2004; Gathercole et al., 2004; Passolunghi, Vercelloni, & Schadee, 2007; Swanson & Kim, 2007)…...
[...]
...Not surprisingly, therefore, the early acquisition of literacy and numeracy skills (Adams & Gathercole, 1995; Blair & Razza, 2007; De Beni, Palladino, Pazzaglia, & Cornoldi, 1998; Gathercole, Pickering, Knight, & Stegmann, 2004; Savage, Cornish, Manly, & Hollis, 2006) and later language and math…...
[...]