LangDiv: Hypotheses about the sources of bilingual resilience over the lifespan

LangDiv：关于一生中双语弹性来源的假设

• 批准号: 2341555
• 负责人: Judith Kroll
• 金额: $ 15万
• 依托单位: University of California-Irvine
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2024
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2024-05-01 至 2025-04-30
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2341555&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: LangDiv; Hypotheses; about; sources; bilingual

The idea that learning and using two languages might interfere with a child's language development or cause confusion is a long-standing myth. Research has demonstrated that bilingualism, exposure to and use of two languages, causes beneficial changes in the brain that can be seen across the lifespan, from infancy and into old age. A bilingual person's two languages are always active, requiring a continual process of juggling to speak the intended language but also the ability to switch between languages at ease. After a lifetime of engaging these processes older bilingual adults tend to be protected from some of the cognitive decline that marks both healthy and pathological aging. Older bilingual adults appear to preserve better cognitive function for longer than older monolingual adults. This project conducts a series of experiments that explore the reasons for this benefit of bilingualism. The experiments are oriented around the finding that, while bilingualism appears to delay the onset of dementia symptoms, when bilinguals finally develop symptoms they are often not able to use their second language. Two explanations have been proposed to explain the loss of the second language. The first explanation attributes the loss to a decline in inhibitory control, the process that controls the ability to switch between languages. The second explanation involves a decline in the relationships between words and what they mean. This project tests these alternatives by comparing the performance on language tasks that engage these different processes. Network analysis is used to measure how connected utterances from language production tasks are and data from word production tasks measure cognitive control and language regulation. This project develops a general protocol that will identify patterns of language and cognitive change with aging.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

学习和使用两种语言可能会干扰儿童的语言发展或造成混乱的想法是一个长期存在的神话。 研究表明，双语、接触和使用两种语言会导致大脑发生有益的变化，这种变化在从婴儿期到老年的整个生命周期中都可以看到。 双语者的两种语言总是处于活跃状态，需要不断地练习说想要的语言，但也需要能够轻松地在语言之间切换。 经过一生的参与这些过程后，年长的双语成年人往往会免受一些标志着健康和病理性衰老的认知衰退的影响。老年双语成年人似乎比老年单语成年人能够更长时间地保持更好的认知功能。该项目进行了一系列实验，探讨双语带来这种好处的原因。这些实验的发现是，虽然双语似乎可以延迟痴呆症状的出现，但当双语者最终出现症状时，他们通常无法使用他们的第二语言。人们提出了两种解释来解释第二语言的丧失。 第一种解释将这种损失归因于抑制控制的下降，抑制控制是控制语言之间切换能力的过程。 第二种解释涉及词语与其含义之间的关系下降。该项目通过比较涉及这些不同过程的语言任务的性能来测试这些替代方案。 网络分析用于测量语言生成任务中的话语之间的关联程度，以及单词生成任务中的数据如何测量认知控制和语言调节。该项目制定了一个通用协议，将识别随年龄增长而发生的语言和认知变化模式。该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。