Memory and Language in Bilinguals

双语者的记忆和语言

• 批准号: 6866769
• 负责人: Viorica Marian
• 金额: $ 7.43万
• 依托单位: NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2005
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2005-02-01 至 2007-01-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/6866769
• 关键词: Asian Americans; Hispanic Americans; behavioral /social science research tag; clinical research; cognition; human subject; information retrieval; language; memory; multilingualism; neural information processing; psycholinguistics; semantics

Description (provided by applicant): The goals of this research are to contribute to understanding the relationship between language and memory, both as general cognitive phenomena and as relevant to bilinguals in particular. Two experiments explore the effect of language on cognitive performance to establish whether language-dependent memory can be observed in semantic retrieval. The phenomenon of language-dependent memory suggests that memories become more accessible when the linguistic environment at retrieval matches the linguistic environment at encoding. Speakers of more than one language are particularly likely to experience language dependence, since their memories are likely to be encoded in different linguistic environments. It is predicted that bilinguals' memory performance will be improved by a match between language of encoding and language of retrieval, and that bilinguals' cognitive performance will benefit from reinstating the linguistic environment present at the time of encoding. The present project extends previous research on language dependent retrieval of episodic memories to language-dependent retrieval of real-world knowledge acquired in everyday life (Experiment 1) and to language-dependent retrieval of information learned in academic settings (Experiment 2). Understanding how language influences memory accessibility may have direct implications for assessment and testing of bilinguals in educational, psychological, medical, and legal settings. Moreover, studying the effects of language on memory in bilinguals may contribute to a general understanding of higher-level cognitive processes, such as how the interaction between language and memory manifests itself, the magnitude of the effects, and what may be some underlying mechanisms.

描述（由申请人提供）：这项研究的目标是帮助理解语言和记忆之间的关系，既作为一般的认知现象，又特别与双语者相关。两项实验探讨了语言对认知表现的影响，以确定是否可以在语义检索中观察到语言依赖性记忆。语言依赖记忆的现象表明，当检索时的语言环境与编码时的语言环境相匹配时，记忆会变得更容易被访问。使用一种以上语言的人特别有可能经历语言依赖，因为他们的记忆可能是在不同的语言环境中编码的。据预测，双语者的记忆表现将通过编码语言和检索语言之间的匹配得到改善，并且双语者的认知表现将受益于恢复编码时存在的语言环境。本项目将先前关于情景记忆的语言依赖性检索的研究扩展到日常生活中获得的现实世界知识的语言依赖性检索（实验1）和学术环境中学习的信息的语言依赖性检索（实验2）。了解语言如何影响记忆可访问性可能会对教育、心理、医疗和法律环境中双语者的评估和测试产生直接影响。此外，研究语言对双语者记忆的影响可能有助于对更高层次的认知过程的总体理解，例如语言和记忆之间的相互作用如何表现出来、影响的大小以及可能的一些潜在机制。