Faculty of Education, Leipzig University, 04109 Leipzig, Germany; Leipzig Research Center for Early Child Development, 04109 Leipzig, Germany.
Faculty of Education, Leipzig University, 04109 Leipzig, Germany; Leipzig Research Center for Early Child Development, 04109 Leipzig, Germany; Faculty of Education, Freiburg University, 79085 Freiburg, Germany.
J Exp Child Psychol. 2022 Jan;213:105255. doi: 10.1016/j.jecp.2021.105255. Epub 2021 Aug 11.
Past research documents a bilingual advantage in the domain of executive functions (EFs). However, controversial debates have questioned the robustness of those behavioral differences. The current study aimed to better understand the underlying cognitive prerequisites in bilingual students as compared with monolingual students and focused on two processes: the role of verbal processes, on the one hand, and mental effort during task execution, on the other. The use of self-regulatory speech has been found to be related to performance in tasks requiring EFs. For bilinguals who have grown up with two language systems from an early age, those relations are not fully understood. Furthermore, results from neuroimaging studies have shown that bilinguals might exhibit less mental effort in EF tasks. We investigated both processes in German-speaking monolingual elementary school students (n = 33; M = 8.78 years) and German-Russian bilingual elementary school students (n = 34; M = 8.88 years) solving a planning task. Results showed that monolinguals were impaired by a verbal secondary task in comparison with a motor control condition, whereas bilinguals performed in both tasks at an equal level, indicating a differential role of self-regulatory speech in both language groups. Analyses of changes in pupil diameter revealed less mental effort during task execution for bilingual children as compared with monolingual children. The current study adds to the existing literature by supplying further evidence for cognitive differences between monolingual and bilingual children.
过去的研究记录了双语在执行功能（EF）领域的优势。然而，有争议的辩论质疑了这些行为差异的稳健性。本研究旨在更好地理解双语学生与单语学生相比的潜在认知前提，并侧重于两个过程：一方面是语言过程的作用，另一方面是任务执行过程中的心理努力。自我调节言语的使用与需要执行功能的任务的表现有关。对于从小就使用两种语言系统的双语者来说，这些关系还不完全清楚。此外，神经影像学研究的结果表明，双语者在执行功能任务中可能表现出较少的心理努力。我们在解决计划任务时调查了德语单语小学儿童（n=33；M=8.78 岁）和德俄双语小学儿童（n=34；M=8.88 岁）的这两个过程。结果表明，与运动控制条件相比，单语者在言语次要任务中受到损害，而双语者在两个任务中表现相同，这表明自我调节言语在两个语言群体中的作用不同。瞳孔直径变化的分析表明，双语儿童在任务执行过程中比单语儿童的心理努力少。本研究通过为单语和双语儿童之间的认知差异提供进一步证据，为现有文献做出了贡献。
