Physiological correlates of monolingual and bilingual cognitive development

加拿大是一个多元文化和多语言的国家，全国各地的许多孩子在成长过程中在家中学习不止一种语言。单语儿童和双语儿童在他们的环境中接受的语言输入有很大的不同。尽管双语习得需要同时学习两套语言规则，但年轻的单语者和双语者在语言习得过程中遵循相同的发展里程碑。双语婴儿学习成功的原因是什么？该项目的一般假设是，发展中的人类思维能够调整认知因素（例如，注意力分配），以便在不同的环境条件下（例如单语与双语学习环境）以最佳方式进行必要的计算（例如，语言计算）。因此，目前的预测是，支持注意力分配的认知机制（如注意唤醒、持续注意和抑制）在单语和双语婴儿中发展不同，这是他们对环境适应过程的一部分。该研究将在一项纵向研究中对这一假设进行调查，该研究旨在评估4至18个月大的单语和双语婴儿以及成年人的认知成熟度。这些实验将评估注意力分配的生理相关性，这是儿童早期学习中最重要的认知组成部分之一。注意力分配的变化与某些生理指标有关，这些指标可以通过眼球运动和心率反应来测量。测量注意力分配的生理成分是有利的，因为它提供了一种测量技术，可以最大限度地减少与任务相关的影响。此外，在语言和非语言处理条件下也将进行测量。通过这种方式，我们可以了解认知适应是否发生在单语者和双语者的语言加工之外。了解与双语和单语发展有关的典型认知模式在人类发展的神经生理方面是加拿大及时的努力。大约有一半的人口会说两种语言，然而我们对人类思维发展的了解主要集中在单语者身上。这些发现将为神经生物学和心理语言学领域的理论和解释模型提供信息。该项目还将开始填补关于双语和单语人口的规范性数据方面的巨大空白；最终，该数据集将有助于开发各种教育和健康评估工具，这些工具同样适用于所有加拿大人，包括单语者和双语者。

Canada is a multicultural and multilingual nation, and many children - across the country - grow up learning more than one language in their homes. Monolingual and bilingual children receive considerably different linguistic inputs in their environments. Despite the fact that bilingual acquisition requires the learning of two sets of linguistic regularities simultaneously, young monolinguals and bilinguals follow the same developmental milestones of language acquisition. What contributes to the learning success of bilingual infants? The general hypothesis of the project is that the developing human mind is capable of adjusting cognitive factors (e.g., attention allocation) to perform necessary computations (e.g., linguistic computations) in an optimal way under different environmental circumstances (e.g. monolingual vs. bilingual learning context). Therefore, the prediction of the current proposal is that cognitive mechanisms that support attention allocation (such as attention arousal, sustained attention, and inhibition) develop differently across monolingual and bilingual infants, as part of their adaptation process to their environments. The proposed research will investigate this hypothesis in a longitudinal study designed for assessing cognitive maturation in monolingual and bilingual infants between 4 and 18 months of age, and adults. The experiments will assess the physiological correlates of attention allocation, which is one of the most important cognitive components that enable learning during early childhood. Changes in attention allocation is associated with certain physiological indicators that can be measured through eye-movements and heart-rate responses. Measuring the physiological components of attention allocation is advantageous because it provides a measurement technique where task-related effects can be minimized. Also, measurements will be taken during linguistic and non-linguistic processing conditions as well. In this way, we can understand whether cognitive adaptation occurs in monolinguals and bilinguals beyond linguistic processing. Understanding the typical cognitive patterns associated with bilingual and monolingual development in respect to the neural-physiological aspects of human development is a timely endeavor in Canada. About half of the population is bilingual, yet our knowledge on the development of the human mind is primarily focused on monolinguals. The findings will inform theoretical and explanatory models from the fields of neurobiology & psycholinguistics. The project will also begin to fill a huge gap in normative data on bilingual and monolingual populations; and ultimately, the data set will contribute to the development of various educational and health assessment tools that are suitable for all Canadians, including monolinguals and bilinguals equally.