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Bilingualism Affects Infant Cognition: Insights From New and Open Data
Rodrigo Dal Ben1, Hilary Killam1, Sadaf Pour Iliaei1
1Concordia University.
Open Mind : Discoveries in Cognitive Science
|November 28, 2022
Summary
Bilingual infants show enhanced cognitive flexibility, better updating learned responses in new situations. This study confirms bilingualism impacts early information processing and learning in infants.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Science
- Developmental Psychology
- Linguistics
Background:
- Bilingualism is theorized to influence cognitive development throughout life.
- Previous research suggested differences in cognitive abilities between monolingual and bilingual infants.
Purpose of the Study:
- To replicate a key study on infant bilingualism and cognitive differences.
- To investigate how bilingualism affects learning and cognitive flexibility in infants aged 7-20 months.
Main Methods:
- Utilized an anticipatory eye-tracking paradigm with 222 infants across five studies.
- Infants learned cue-reward associations and were tested on their ability to update this learning.
- Reanalyzed existing open datasets alongside newly collected data.
Main Results:
- Bilingual infants in four of five studies demonstrated superior ability to update learned responses.
- This enhanced updating in bilingual infants may correlate with initially weaker learning.
- One study showed bilinguals learning faster initially, with monolinguals performing better on updating.
Conclusions:
- Bilingualism significantly influences how infants process and adapt to new information during learning.
- Findings underscore the role of early language experience in shaping cognitive flexibility.
- Open science practices are valuable for advancing research in infant language development.
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