Computational modeling and bilingualism have had until recently only limited interactions (see reviews in French & Jacquet, 2004; Hernandez, Li, & MacWhinney, 2005; Li & Farkas, 2002; Thomas & van Heuven, 2005). Bilingualism has been the norm rather than the exception in our globalized world, but the acquisition of two languages entails significant complexity that challenges empirical methodolo...

Previous work has shown that bilingualism is associated with more effective controlled processing in children; the assumption is that the constant management of 2 competing languages enhances executive functions (E. Bialystok, 2001). The present research attempted to determine whether this bilingual advantage persists for adults and whether bilingualism attenuates the negative effects of aging ...

Most people in the world speak more than one language, making bilingualism the norm rather than the exception. Furthermore, speakers generally also move their hands – they gesture – in coordination with speech and language in nontrivial ways. Bilingualism and multimodality should thus be on research agendas focused on the nature of linguistic systems and language use in context, yet they are of...

A series of discoveries in the last two decades has changed the way we think about bilingualism and its implications for language and cognition. One is that both languages are always active. The parallel activation of the two languages is thought to give rise to competition that imposes demands on the bilingual to control the language not in use to achieve fluency in the target language. The se...

Language switching is omnipresent in bilingual individuals. In fact, the ability to switch languages (code switching) is a very fast, efficient, and flexible process that seems to be a fundamental aspect of bilingual language processing. In this study, we aimed to characterize psychometrically self-perceived individual differences in language switching and to create a reliable measure of this b...

While considerable research has focused on second language development and academic success, the debate continues on how the development of the first language benefits the acquisition of the second. The intent of the present study was to examine the s t rength of the re la t ion among proficiency in English and Spanish and academic success. Relations among oral language, literacy, and academic ...

There are many myths about bilingualism in children, many of them negative ones. Some educators have cautioned against the use of two languages in children, claiming that bilingualism causes cognitive, Social, and emotional damage to children. Although few scholars today would claim that bilingualism could cognitively harm children, this view has been advocated in the past, and can still be occ...

Several studies have documented the advantage of bilingualism with respect to the development of the executive control (EC) system. Two effects of bilingualism have been described in conflict resolution tasks: (a) bilinguals tend to perform the tasks faster overall, and (b) bilinguals tend to experience less interference from conflicting information, compared to monolinguals. The precise way in...

Objective. Bilingualism has been shown to benefit executive function (EF) and delay the onset of Alzheimer's disease. This study aims at examining whether a bilingual advantage applies to EF in Parkinson's disease (PD). Method. In a cross-sectional outpatient cohort of monolingual English (n = 57) and bilingual Welsh/English (n = 46) speakers with PD we evaluated the effects of bilingualism com...