Neural Correlates of Cross-linguistic Transfer Effect During Phonological Tasks in Chinese-English Bilingual Children

 Neural Correlates of Cross-linguistic Transfer Effect During Phonological Tasks in Chinese-English Bilingual Children

 

            An estimated 20% of Americans are bilingual. There has been extensive research on the cognitive effects of bilingualism in childhood development. Although it has been shown that bilingualism can have beneficial effects on cognitive performance, most of the mechanisms behind how a second language is acquired and maintained in conjunction with the first language is unknown.

            In the research article titled, The Multifaceted Nature of Bilingualism and Attention, Dr. Ashley Chung-Fat-Yim and her colleagues focused on the effect of bilingualism on attention. There are five different levels of attention. These levels are sustained attention, alternating attention, selective attention, divided attention, and disengagement of attention. Sustained attention refers to being able to continuously focus on one task or subject amid what’s going on in the environment. Alternating attention refers to switching or shifting attention between two subjects. Selective attention refers to focusing on only one subject at a time. Divided attention refers to processing multiple subjects at the same time. Lastly, disengagement of attention refers to being able to remove attention from one task and shift it to another. In the experiment, Dr. Ashley Chung-Fat-Yim and her colleagues had participants perform several tasks that observe the differences in each type of attention between bilinguals and monolinguals. The researchers found that bilingualism enhances sustained attention and selective attention. Alternating attention is also stronger in bilinguals compared to monolinguals. As for divided attention, there is a possibility that bilingualism could affect this, but it’s difficult to say due to the influence of people’s own individual experiences and the task conditions. Lastly, bilingualism was also associated with quick disengagement of attention.

            In the research article, Neural Substrates of L2-L1 Transfer Effects on Phonological Awareness in Young Chinese-English Children, researchers investigated the specific brain regions that are active during tasks in Chinese and English on bilingual and monolingual children. L1 refers to the primary language that was acquired first and L2 refers to the second language acquired. The L2-L1 transfer effect describes the influence of L2 and a L2-dominant environment on the cognitive processing of L1. The researchers had both monolinguals and bilinguals perform tasks that focused on phonological awareness, reading fluency, working memory etc. Researchers measured the brain activity that occurred during these tasks using fNIRS (functional near-infrared spectroscopy). When comparing the results between the Chinese and English tasks in bilingual children, the researchers found that the bilinguals utilized the right hemisphere of the brain processing Chinese and the left hemisphere of the brain for processing English. They also found that bilinguals prominently had bilateral frontal activation of the vIFG (ventral inferior frontal gyrus) and the MFG (middle frontal gyrus). Meanwhile, monolinguals prominently had activation in the left pSTG (posterior superior temporal gyrus) and the left MTG (middle temporal gyrus).

            Bilingualism is shown to have significant effects on cognitive development. By utilizing both Dr. Ashley Chung-Fat-Yim’s research and others’ research on how bilingualism influences the performance on various tasks and cognitive processing, more can be discovered on how a second language is acquired and how the brain utilizes this language while distinguishing it from another language.

Works Cited

Chung-Fat-Yim, A., Calvo, N., & Grundy, J. G. (2022). The Multifaceted Nature of Bilingualism and Attention. Frontiers in psychology, 13, 910382. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.910382.

 

Housman, Patty. (2023, November 15). Multilingualism on Rise in US: Illusion or Reality?. American University. https://www.american.edu/cas/news/multilingualism-on-rise-in-us-illusion-or-reality.cfm.

 

Kou, J. W., Fan, L. Y., Chen, H. C., Chen, S. Y., Hu, X., Zhang, K., Kovelman, I., & Chou, T. L. (2024). Neural substrates of L2-L1 transfer effects on phonological awareness in young Chinese-English bilingual children. NeuroImage, 291, 120592. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2024.120592.