Is mere exposure enough? The effects of bilingual environments on infant cognitive development
Is mere exposure enough? The effects of bilingual environments on infant cognitive development
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DOI：
10.1098/rsos.180191
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发表时间：
2020-02-26
影响因子：
3.5
通讯作者：
D'Souza, Hana
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
D'Souza, Dean;Brady, Daniel;D'Souza, Hana
据称，双语者在认知控制的非语言任务中表现优于单语者（“双语者”）。最常见的解释是，在语言产生过程中管理两种语言不断地利用，从而加强，域一般抑制机制（绿色1998年比林。朗科恩1，67 - 81。()).然而，这一理论不能解释为什么双语优势已被发现在前语言的婴儿（科瓦奇和梅勒2009年美国国家科学院院刊。sci. USA 106，6556 - 6560. ()).需要另一种解释。我们认为，暴露于更多样化，更不可预测的（语言）环境驱动婴儿样本更多的重量放在巩固熟悉的信息，以更快地定向（和探索）新的刺激。为了证实婴儿的双语优势并测试我们的建议，我们对7至9个月大的婴儿进行了四项视情况而定的眼动追踪任务，这些婴儿在双语（n = 51）或单语（n = 51）家庭中长大。我们无法复制Kovacs和Mehler的发现，即双语而非单语婴儿抑制学习行为（实验1）。然而，我们发现，暴露于双语环境的婴儿确实比暴露于单语环境的婴儿探索更多，通过可能更快地将注意力从一种刺激中分离出来，以便将注意力转移到另一种刺激（实验3），并在刺激之间更频繁地切换注意力（实验4）。这些数据表明，经验驱动的适应可能确实会导致暴露于双语环境的婴儿比暴露于单语环境的婴儿更频繁地切换注意力。
Bilinguals purportedly outperform monolinguals in non-verbal tasks of cognitive control (the 'bilingual advantage'). The most common explanation is that managing two languages during language production constantly draws upon, and thus strengthens, domain-general inhibitory mechanisms (Green 1998 Biling. Lang. Cogn. 1, 67-81. ()). However, this theory cannot explain why a bilingual advantage has been found in preverbal infants (Kovacs & Mehler 2009 Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 106, 6556-6560. ()). An alternative explanation is needed. We propose that exposure to more varied, less predictable (language) environments drive infants to sample more by placing less weight on consolidating familiar information in order to orient sooner to (and explore) new stimuli. To confirm the bilingual advantage in infants and test our proposal, we administered four gaze-contingent eye-tracking tasks to seven- to nine-month-old infants who were being raised in either bilingual (n = 51) or monolingual (n = 51) homes. We could not replicate the finding by Kovacs and Mehler that bilingual but not monolingual infants inhibit learned behaviour (experiment 1). However, we found that infants exposed to bilingual environments do indeed explore more than those exposed to monolingual environments, by potentially disengaging attention faster from one stimulus in order to shift attention to another (experiment 3) and by switching attention more frequently between stimuli (experiment 4). These data suggest that experience-driven adaptations may indeed result in infants exposed to bilingual environments switching attention more frequently than infants exposed to a monolingual environment.