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Early childhood bilingualism leads to advances in executive attention: Dissociating culture and language*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 April 2011

SUJIN YANG ,
HWAJIN YANG  and
BARBARA LUST
SUJIN YANG
Affiliation:
Tyndale University College
HWAJIN YANG
Affiliation:
Singapore Management University
BARBARA LUST*
Affiliation:
Cornell University
*
Address for correspondence: Barbara Lust, Department of Human Development, Martha Van Rensselaer Hall, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA[email protected]
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Abstract

This study investigated whether early especially efficient utilization of executive functioning in young bilinguals would transcend potential cultural benefits. To dissociate potential cultural effects from bilingualism, four-year-old U.S. Korean–English bilingual children were compared to three monolingual groups – English and Korean monolinguals in the U.S.A. and another Korean monolingual group, in Korea. Overall, bilinguals were most accurate and fastest among all groups. The bilingual advantage was stronger than that of culture in the speed of attention processing, inverse processing efficiency independent of possible speed-accuracy trade-offs, and the network of executive control for conflict resolution. A culture advantage favoring Korean monolinguals from Korea was found in accuracy but at the cost of longer response times.

Keywords

bilingual cognitive advantagecultureexecutive attentionAttention Network Test
Type
Research Notes
Information
Bilingualism: Language and Cognition , Volume 14 , Issue 3 , July 2011 , pp. 412 - 422
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

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Footnotes

*

This work was supported by research grant awards from the College of Human Ecology and the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies at Cornell University. We thank M. Rosario Rueda and Jin Fan for consultation on the Attention Network Test and to Ellen Bialystok, Suzanne Flynn, James Gair, and three anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments on the manuscript. Many thanks also go to the directors of daycare centers (NEW Christian Academy in New Jersey, Cornell University Early Childhood Center under the direction of Elizabeth Stilwell in New York, and Good Morning daycare in Korea) for their support, as well as parents and children who willingly participated in the study.

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