LangDiv: Hypotheses about the sources of bilingual resilience over the lifespan

LangDiv：关于一生中双语弹性来源的假设

• 批准号: 2341555
• 负责人: Judith Kroll
• 金额: $ 15万
• 依托单位: University of California-Irvine
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2024
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2024-05-01 至 2025-04-30
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2341555&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: LangDiv; Hypotheses; about; sources; bilingual

The idea that learning and using two languages might interfere with a child's language development or cause confusion is a long-standing myth. Research has demonstrated that bilingualism, exposure to and use of two languages, causes beneficial changes in the brain that can be seen across the lifespan, from infancy and into old age. A bilingual person's two languages are always active, requiring a continual process of juggling to speak the intended language but also the ability to switch between languages at ease. After a lifetime of engaging these processes older bilingual adults tend to be protected from some of the cognitive decline that marks both healthy and pathological aging. Older bilingual adults appear to preserve better cognitive function for longer than older monolingual adults. This project conducts a series of experiments that explore the reasons for this benefit of bilingualism. The experiments are oriented around the finding that, while bilingualism appears to delay the onset of dementia symptoms, when bilinguals finally develop symptoms they are often not able to use their second language. Two explanations have been proposed to explain the loss of the second language. The first explanation attributes the loss to a decline in inhibitory control, the process that controls the ability to switch between languages. The second explanation involves a decline in the relationships between words and what they mean. This project tests these alternatives by comparing the performance on language tasks that engage these different processes. Network analysis is used to measure how connected utterances from language production tasks are and data from word production tasks measure cognitive control and language regulation. This project develops a general protocol that will identify patterns of language and cognitive change with aging.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

学习和使用两种语言可能会干扰孩子的语言发展或引起混乱的想法是一个长期的神话。 研究表明，双语，对两种语言的接触和使用，会导致大脑中的有益变化，从婴儿期到老年，可以看到整个生命周期。 双语者的两种语言总是很活跃，需要连续的杂耍来讲预期的语言，也需要轻松地在语言之间切换语言的能力。 经过一生的参与，这些较老的双语成年人往往会受到保护的某些认知能力下降，这些认知能力标志着健康和病理衰老。年龄较大的双语成年人似乎比老年人更长的成年人可以保留更好的认知功能。该项目进行了一系列实验，以探讨双语性的这种益处的原因。这些实验是围绕以下发现的，即双语主义似乎延迟了痴呆症状的发作，但双语者最终出现症状时，他们通常无法使用其第二语言。已经提出了两个解释来解释第二语言的丧失。 第一个解释将损失归因于抑制性控制下降，该过程控制了在语言之间切换的能力。 第二个解释涉及单词之间的关系及其含义之间的下降。该项目通过比较涉及这些不同过程的语言任务的性能来测试这些替代方案。 网络分析用于衡量语言生产任务的连接性话语以及单词生产任务的数据测量认知控制和语言调节。该项目开发了一项通用协议，该协议将通过老化来确定语言和认知变化的模式。该奖项反映了NSF的法定任务，并使用基金会的知识分子优点和更广泛的影响评估标准，被认为值得通过评估来获得支持。