Stroop effect in Spanish-English bilinguals

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Neuroscience
• Linguistics

Background:

• Bilingualism influences cognitive processes, including executive functions.
• The Golden Stroop Test is a tool to measure selective attention and cognitive interference.
• Understanding bilingual cognitive performance is crucial for models of language processing and memory.

Purpose of the Study:

• To analyze the performance of Spanish-English bilinguals on the Golden Stroop Test.
• To investigate the effects of bilingualism, age, age of acquisition, and language proficiency on Stroop Test performance.
• To explore interference effects within and between languages in bilingual individuals.

Main Methods:

• Participants included 71 Spanish-English bilinguals, 40 English monolinguals, and 11 Spanish monolinguals.
• Language proficiency was assessed via self-report and the Boston Naming Test.
• The Golden Stroop Test was administered in both English and Spanish to bilingual participants.

Main Results:

• Bilinguals generally performed slower than monolinguals on the Golden Stroop Test.
• No significant differences were found in color reading, but bilinguals were worse at naming colors.
• Language proficiency interacted with the language of test administration, with better performance in the dominant language for unbalanced bilinguals.
• Evidence for both between- and within-language interference was observed in bilinguals.

Conclusions:

• Bilingualism can lead to slower performance on tasks requiring cognitive control, like the Stroop Test.
• Language proficiency is a key factor influencing Stroop performance in unbalanced bilinguals.
• The findings support models that account for both interference between languages and within a single language in bilinguals.