Publication Type
Journal Article
Version
acceptedVersion
Publication Date
1-2017
Abstract
We investigated bilingual advantages in general control abilities using three complex-span tasks of working memory (WM). An operation-span task served as a baseline measure of WM capacity. Additionally, two modified versions of the Stroop-span task were designed to place varying attentional-control demands during memoranda encoding by asking participants either to read the to-be-remembered item aloud (lower cognitive control; i.e., Stroop-span task) or to name the font color of the to-be-remembered item while still encoding the word for later recall (greater cognitive control; i.e., attention-impeded Stroop-span task). Twenty-six Korean-English bilinguals and 25 English-native monolinguals were tested. We found that bilinguals outperformed monolinguals on the attention-impeded Stroop-span task, but on neither the operation-span nor the Stroop-span task. Our findings demonstrate that bilingualism provides advantages in controlled processing, an important component of WM and other executive functions, suggesting that the demand for controlled processing in WM tasks moderates bilingual effects on WM.
Keywords
bilingualism, controlled attention, executive attention, interference, working memory
Discipline
Cognitive Psychology | Multicultural Psychology
Research Areas
Psychology
Publication
Bilingualism: Language and Cognition
Volume
20
Issue
1
First Page
184
Last Page
196
ISSN
1366-7289
Identifier
10.1017/S1366728915000632
Publisher
Cambridge University Press (CUP): HSS Journals
Citation
YANG, Hwajin, & YANG, Sujin.(2017). Are all interferences bad? Bilingual advantages in working memory are modulated by varying demands for controlled processing. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 20(1), 184-196.
Available at: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/2057
Copyright Owner and License
Authors
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Additional URL
https://doi.org/10.1017/S1366728915000632