Doctoral Dissertation Research: A Novel Approach to Investigate Psychological Processes in Language: Contrasting Bilinguals and Interpreters

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In many studies comparing bilinguals to monolinguals, researchers have found that bilinguals outperform monolinguals on certain measures of cognitive control. This is called the bilingual advantage. The bilingual advantage most likely is caused by the bilingual's experience regularly switching between two languages and their respective grammatical properties. In order to appropriately switch between languages, the bilingual must a) control the selection of the target language according to the linguistic environment and b) resolve conflict between competing alternatives. If this hypothesis is true, then 1) the more language switching performed and language conflict resolved, the more cognitive advantage she will have, and 2) the more experience a bilingual has managing language switching and conflict, the more cognitive advantage she will have. In order to investigate this claim, the researchers are recruiting college students in training programs that are either a) being trained to manage low levels of bilingual language switching and conflict such as learning a second language that is a signed language, which competes less with the native spoken language, or b) being trained to manage high levels of bilingual language switching and conflict, specifically simultaneous interpreting. Simultaneous interpreting is a complex cognitive task in which the bilingual must concurrently comprehend and produce two languages with differing grammatical properties. The participants are either beginning or advanced students (in both the low-switch/conflict and the high-switch/conflict groups) so that the role of experience will also be investigated. In addition, the researchers are recruiting both bimodal (signed language-spoken language) bilinguals and unimodal (spoken language-spoken language) bilinguals for each of the groups. A variety of language ability and cognitive ability measures are administered to the participants. The research will speak to differences and similarities between unimodal and bimodal bilinguals, and will investigate the role of cognitive enhancement based on amount of language switching and conflict resolution and experience managing the switching and conflict. It will also contribute to the training of a promising scholar.