Department of Psychology, Clark University, Worcester, MA 01610, USA.
Department of Psychology, Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30322, USA.
J Exp Child Psychol. 2019 Nov;187:104661. doi: 10.1016/j.jecp.2019.07.001. Epub 2019 Aug 9.
A primary objective of development is to build a knowledge base. To accumulate knowledge over time and experiences, learners must engage in productive processes, going beyond what is explicitly given to generate new knowledge. Although these processes are important to accumulating knowledge, they are also easily disrupted. Individuals often depend on surface-level similarities, such as visual features, to recognize the relation between learning episodes. When the surface-level similarity is low, performance on tasks that depend on productive processes, such as self-derivation through integration of new knowledge, suffers. The major purpose of the current research was to examine whether presentation of related information in different languages poses a challenge to memory integration and self-derivation due to low levels of surface similarity between episodes of learning through different languages. In Study 1, 62 children (Grade 2; mean age = 8 years 1 month) listened to story passages containing novel facts that could be integrated to self-derive new knowledge. Related passages were presented either through the same language or through two different languages (cross-language condition; Spanish and English). There were no significant differences between presentation conditions. In Study 2, 100 children (Grades 3 and 4; mean age = 9.7 years) heard novel facts in single sentences, again presented in either a same-language or cross-language condition. Whereas third-grade cross-language performance suffered compared with same-language English controls, fourth-grade performance did not. Results suggest that in addition to language proficiency, rich contextual support and experience in a bilingual environment facilitate cross-language integration.
发展的主要目标之一是建立知识库。为了随着时间的推移和经验的积累获取知识，学习者必须参与到富有成效的过程中，超越明确的内容，生成新的知识。尽管这些过程对于积累知识很重要，但它们也很容易受到干扰。个体通常依赖于表面上的相似性，例如视觉特征，来识别学习片段之间的关系。当表面相似性较低时，依赖于富有成效的过程（例如通过新知识的整合进行自我推导）的任务的表现就会受到影响。当前研究的主要目的是检验通过不同语言呈现相关信息是否会由于通过不同语言进行学习的片段之间的表面相似性较低而对记忆整合和自我推导构成挑战。在研究 1 中，62 名儿童（二年级；平均年龄为 8 岁 1 个月）听了包含可以整合以自我推导新知识的新事实的故事片段。相关的片段通过同一种语言或两种不同的语言呈现（跨语言条件；西班牙语和英语）。呈现条件之间没有显著差异。在研究 2 中，100 名儿童（三年级和四年级；平均年龄为 9.7 岁）在单个句子中听到了新的事实，同样以同一种语言或跨语言条件呈现。与同一种语言的英语对照组相比，三年级的跨语言表现较差，但四年级的表现没有。结果表明，除了语言能力之外，丰富的上下文支持和在双语环境中的经验有助于跨语言整合。
