Department of Psychiatry and Neurochemistry, Institute of Neuroscience and Physiology, Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden.
Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Institute of Neuroscience and Physiology, Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden.
Arch Clin Neuropsychol. 2022 May 16;37(4):826-838. doi: 10.1093/arclin/acaa043.
We aimed to study second language effects on neuropsychological (NP) test performance.
We administered an NP test battery in Swedish to 322 healthy community dwelling participants, recruited through the Gothenburg Pilot phase of the Swedish CArdioPulmonary BioImage Study (SCAPIS Pilot). All participants were conversationally fluent Swedish speakers (237 native, 85 non-native, mean age 61.1 years). We compared the NP scores of native and non-native participants. We also investigated the influence of (a) age of arrival to Sweden, (b) majority language family of the birth country, and (c) proficiency in Swedish as assessed with a 30 item Boston naming test (BNT).
Native speakers obtained better results on all NP tasks with a verbal component, whereas no significant differences were seen on completely nonverbal tasks (Rey complex figure). For non-native speakers, lower age at arrival to Sweden, arrival from a country where Swedish was also spoken, or arrival from a country with a majority language closer to Swedish, were all linked to better NP scores. Dichotomizing by BNT showed that normally-to-highly proficient non-native speakers obtained better scores.
Second language effects may contribute to misclassification of non-native speakers. Assumptions of fluency based on short conversations may be misleading. A proficiency assessment with BNT may improve NP score interpretation among non-native speakers.
我们旨在研究第二语言对神经心理学（NP）测试表现的影响。
我们用瑞典语向通过瑞典心肺生物影像研究（SCAPIS 试点）哥德堡试点阶段招募的 322 名健康社区居民参与者进行了 NP 测试组合。所有参与者都是会话流利的瑞典语使用者（237 名母语者，85 名非母语者，平均年龄 61.1 岁）。我们比较了母语者和非母语者的 NP 分数。我们还研究了（a）抵达瑞典的年龄、（b）出生国的主要语言家族，以及（c）使用 30 项波士顿命名测试（BNT）评估的瑞典语熟练度的影响。
母语者在所有具有语言成分的 NP 任务中都取得了更好的成绩，而在完全非语言任务（ Rey 复杂图形）中则没有明显差异。对于非母语者，到达瑞典的年龄越低、来自母语为瑞典语的国家或来自语言与瑞典语更接近的国家，他们的 NP 分数都更好。根据 BNT 进行二分法显示，正常到高度熟练的非母语者获得了更好的成绩。
第二语言的影响可能导致对非母语者的错误分类。基于简短对话的流利假设可能会产生误导。使用 BNT 进行熟练度评估可能会改善非母语者的 NP 分数解释。
