TY - JOUR
T1 - Bilingual children show an advantage in controlling verbal interference during spoken language comprehension
AU - Filippi, Roberto
AU - Morris, John
AU - Richardson, Fiona M.
AU - Bright, Peter
AU - Thomas, Michael S.C.
AU - Karmiloff-Smith, Annette
AU - Marian, Viorica
N1 - Funding Information:
This study was funded by a private investor based in London, who asked to remain anonymous; we appreciate his generosity. We also thank Mrs. Birch, Headteacher of the Histon & Impington Junior School, her staff, the children and the parents who enthusiastically helped us to carry out this research. Preparation of this manuscript was supported in part by grant NICHD-RO1HD059858 to the last author. FILIPPI ROBERTO MORRIS JOHN RICHARDSON FIONA M. BRIGHT PETER THOMAS MICHAEL S.C. KARMILOFF-SMITH ANNETTE MARIAN VIORICA Anglia Ruskin University , Cambridge Birkbeck , University of London Anglia Ruskin University , Cambridge Anglia Ruskin University , Cambridge Birkbeck , University of London Anglia Ruskin University , Cambridge Birkbeck , University of London Birkbeck , University of London Northwestern University , Chicago
PY - 2015/7/28
Y1 - 2015/7/28
N2 - Studies measuring inhibitory control in the visual modality have shown a bilingual advantage in both children and adults. However, there is a lack of developmental research on inhibitory control in the auditory modality. This study compared the comprehension of active and passive English sentences in 7-10 years old bilingual and monolingual children. The task was to identify the agent of a sentence in the presence of verbal interference. The target sentence was cued by the gender of the speaker. Children were instructed to focus on the sentence in the target voice and ignore the distractor sentence. Results indicate that bilinguals are more accurate than monolinguals in comprehending syntactically complex sentences in the presence of linguistic noise. This supports previous findings with adult participants (Filippi, Leech, Thomas, Green & Dick, 2012). We therefore conclude that the bilingual advantage in interference control begins early in life and is maintained throughout development.
AB - Studies measuring inhibitory control in the visual modality have shown a bilingual advantage in both children and adults. However, there is a lack of developmental research on inhibitory control in the auditory modality. This study compared the comprehension of active and passive English sentences in 7-10 years old bilingual and monolingual children. The task was to identify the agent of a sentence in the presence of verbal interference. The target sentence was cued by the gender of the speaker. Children were instructed to focus on the sentence in the target voice and ignore the distractor sentence. Results indicate that bilinguals are more accurate than monolinguals in comprehending syntactically complex sentences in the presence of linguistic noise. This supports previous findings with adult participants (Filippi, Leech, Thomas, Green & Dick, 2012). We therefore conclude that the bilingual advantage in interference control begins early in life and is maintained throughout development.
KW - bilingualism
KW - control of interference
KW - executive function
KW - inhibitory control
KW - sentence comprehension
KW - spoken language processing
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U2 - 10.1017/S1366728914000686
DO - 10.1017/S1366728914000686
M3 - Article
C2 - 26146479
AN - SCOPUS:84929862554
VL - 18
SP - 490
EP - 501
JO - Bilingualism: Language and Cognition
JF - Bilingualism: Language and Cognition
SN - 1366-7289
IS - 3
ER -