Cognitive Individual Differences in Multilingualism: Language Aptitude and Working Memory in L3 Learners

Area of Science:

• Psycholinguistics
• Cognitive Psychology
• Second Language Acquisition

Background:

• Language aptitude (LA) and working memory (WM) are crucial for language learning.
• Understanding their interplay is key to explaining individual differences in third language (L3) acquisition.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the relationship between LA and WM.
• To determine their predictive power for L3 comprehension.
• To explore the influence of L3 learning experience.

Main Methods:

• Factor analysis of LA (LLAMA) and WM tasks (digit span, rotation, symmetry, operation span).
• Assessment of L3 listening and reading comprehension in L1 Turkish-English majors.
• Correlation and regression analyses to examine predictive roles.

Main Results:

• Factor analysis identified distinct verbal/phonological memory, visuospatial WM, and LA factors.
• L3 learning experience did not correlate with cognitive factors.
• Cognitive factors did not significantly predict L3 comprehension beyond L3 experience.

Conclusions:

• LA and WM share underlying verbal abilities.
• L3 learning experience is a more significant predictor of L3 comprehension than LA and WM in this population.
• Variations in L3 experience may account for differences in L3 proficiency.