PURPOSE Assessment tools are needed to accurately index performance in bilingual populations. This study examines the verbal fluency task to further establish the relative sensitivities of letter and category fluency in assessing bilingual language skills in Spanish-English bilinguals. METHOD English monolinguals and Spanish-English bilinguals had 1 minute to name words belonging to a categor...

In the present study, we tested the hypothesis that bilingualism may cause a linguistic disadvantage in lexical access even for bilinguals' first and dominant language. To this purpose, we conducted a picture naming experiment comparing the performance of monolinguals and highly-proficient, L1-dominant bilinguals. The results revealed that monolinguals name pictures faster than bilinguals, both...

The present study examined whether monolinguals and balanced bilinguals perceive speech sounds similarly or whether the two phonological systems in bilinguals interact so that one language is affected by the other. Two groups, monolingual native speakers of Finnish and balanced Finnish-Swedish bilinguals, were tested. We measured mismatch negativity (MMN) responses and used individually selecte...

Young children engage in essentialist reasoning about natural kinds, believing that many traits are innately determined. This study investigated whether personal experience with second language acquisition could alter children's essentialist biases. In a switched-at-birth paradigm, 5- and 6-year-old monolingual and simultaneous bilingual children expected that a baby's native language, an anima...

It is well established that early bilinguals can accurately produce and perceive sounds in both of their languages (e.g. Flege and Eefting, 1987, Sundara, Polk, and Baum, 2006; but see also below). This applies both to sounds that occur in only one of the two languages and to sounds that are common to both but differ at the phonetic level. For example, the trilled /r/ in Spanish and the approxi...

The aim of this study was to analyze the performance of Spanish-English bilinguals on the Golden Stroop Test. The effects of bilingualism, participants' age, age of acquisition of the second language, and proficiency in each language were analyzed. Participants consisted of 71 Spanish-English bilinguals, 40 English monolinguals, and 11 Spanish monolinguals from South Florida. Proficiency in Spa...

The frequency-lag hypothesis proposes that bilinguals have slowed lexical retrieval relative to monolinguals and in their nondominant language relative to their dominant language, particularly for low-frequency words. These effects arise because bilinguals divide their language use between 2 languages and use their nondominant language less frequently. We conducted a picture-naming study with h...

The present investigation examined the functioning of inhibitory mechanisms in younger and older bilinguals using a bilingual version of the Stroop test. The study predicted different patterns of age related decline in inhibitory mechanisms (inter- and intralingual interference) in bilinguals depending on their level of proficiency. Consistent with expectations, older bilinguals were slower whe...

Analytic language knowledge has often been highlighted among experts in the field, and its potential effects on metalinguistic awareness have of great interest to researchers. This study aims find relationship between analytic effect awareness. A total 210 tertiary level students from three different public universities Turkey participated study. The subjects were studying departments: History ...

Many studies in the past decade have shown that "earlier is better" as far as learning a second language (L2) is concerned. That is, individuals who began learning their L2 in late adolescence or early adulthood ("late bilinguals") usually resemble native speakers of the L2 less than individuals who began learning their L2 in childhood ("early bilinguals") do. Early bilinguals have been shown t...