Open AccessBilingualism in connection with executive functions and cognition in children in Slovenian bilingual area
Author(s) -
Sara Mičič,
Karin Bakračevič
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
studia historica slovenica
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.66
H-Index - 7
eISSN - 2591-2194
pISSN - 1580-8122
DOI - 10.32874/shs.2020-08
Subject(s) - stroop effect , neuroscience of multilingualism , psychology , cognition , memory span , executive functions , fluency , verbal fluency test , working memory , cognitive psychology , developmental psychology , task (project management) , vocabulary , test (biology) , neuropsychology , linguistics , paleontology , philosophy , mathematics education , management , neuroscience , biology , economics
The purpose of this study was to research the assumptions about the connectionbetween bilingualism and results in the field of cognitive functioning.Research showing the advantage of bilingual individuals in comparison withmonolinguals in cognitive functioning is often explained by the mechanismsthat allow bilingual individuals to control and represent the two languagesin the brain. Our study included children aged 9 to 11 years: a group ofbilingual children who speak Slovene and Hungarian and a control group ofmonolingual, Slovene speaking children. We tested them with the followingcognitive abilities tests: executive functions with TMT and Stroop test, workingmemory with digit span task forward and backward, verbal abilities with verbalfluency test and vocabulary. The data showed that, although verbal fluencywas lower in bilingual group, bilingual children performed better on versionsof Stroop task, which could indicate advantage in speed of processing and tolesser extent also in ability of handling conflicting information.