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Scholarly Works (12 results)

  • Article
  • Peer Reviewed
Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, Volume 37 (2015)
Mathematical problem solving requires cognitive flexibility. Bilingual children show advantages in cognitive flexibility as compared to monolingual children. Whether this bilingual cognitive advantage extends to mathematical skills is the focus of the present study. To measure children’s use of cognitive flexibility, worksheets containing 60 arithmetic problems of different operations were administered to first- through fifth-grade monolingual and bilingual children; children were given 60 seconds to complete as many grade-appropriate problems as possible. Performance on the math worksheet was analyzed as the number of problems completed and solved correctly. Results indicate that bilingualism affects arithmetic problem solving in third- through fifth-graders (problems completed: F(1,24)=9.20, p<.01; accuracy: F(1,24)=3.30, p=.08) but not first- and second-graders (problems completed: F(1,38)=0.38, p=.54; accuracy: F(1,38)=0.83, p=.37). Findings from this study thus suggest that bilingual cognitive flexibility extends to mathematical problem solving, and that this cognitive flexibility develops over the elementary school years in bilingual children.
    Cover page: Cognitive Flexibility in Mathematics: Bilingual Children Show Cognitive Advantages
    • Article
    • Peer Reviewed
    UCLA Previously Published Works (2023)
    Research has demonstrated that learning two or more languages during development (i.e., becoming bilingual) shapes children's cognition in myriad ways. However, because such studies have largely been conducted using laboratory experiments, it is unclear how bilingualism may modulate more naturalistic cognitive skills such as arithmetic fluency. Moreover, how the relationship between speaking two (or more) languages and arithmetic varies with language fluency-specifically, the degree of bilingualism-has been understudied. Therefore, this study examined third- to fifth-grade monolingual (n = 70) and bilingual (n = 51) children's performance on an arithmetic fluency task. Monolinguals' and bilinguals' performance on the arithmetic fluency task did not differ. However, individual differences in the relation between children's arithmetic fluency and their language fluency were found, suggesting that bilingual children's skill in their nondominant language was associated with arithmetic fluency. These findings point to the importance of examining individual differences in language fluency among bilinguals to understand how bilingualism may shape cognitive skills.
      Creative Commons 'BY' version 4.0 license
      • Article
      • Peer Reviewed
      UCLA Previously Published Works (2015)
      In Japanese, numeral classifiers-or measure words-co-occur with numbers in counting phrases. The present study characterized parent numeral classifier use and its relation to children's classifier acquisition and number learning. Twenty-four Japanese-speaking parents and their two- to six-year-old children viewed and talked about two wordless picture books about counting to each other. Children also participated in a Counting task and Give-N task. Results revealed (1) parents' classifier use changed in relation to children's age and classifier use, and (2) parents' increased use of specific classifiers was uniquely associated with children's number understanding. These results suggest that aspects of children's language and numerical development are related to parents' language input, demonstrating the importance of examining the relation between language and cognition in a developmental context.
        Cover page: Generic and Specific Numeral Classifier Input and its Relation to Children’s Classifier and Number Learning
        • Article
        • Peer Reviewed
        UCLA Previously Published Works (2020)
          Cover page: Early Language Environments Predict Aspects of Explicit Language Awareness Development
          • Thesis
          • Peer Reviewed
          UCLA Electronic Theses and Dissertations (2017)

          Growing up in a linguistically diverse language environment and/or a multilingual family shapes language and communicative development. This dissertation focused on how growing up in a linguistically diverse environment versus a multilingual family affects development of language awareness—the understanding of the communicative functions and conventions of language. Specifically, the present dissertation examined the effects of two kinds of foreign language experience on language awareness development: (1) exposure to many languages in your community (i.e., community linguistic diversity) and (2) exposure to one foreign language for a brief period of time. Moreover, this dissertation examined how these two kinds of foreign language experience impact children’s development of four aspects of language awareness: children’s (1) ability to name language(s); (2) awareness of their language environment; (3) understanding of the communicative consequences of speaking different languages; and (4) understanding of labeling conventions across languages—that objects have different names in different languages.

          Experiment 1 examined whether exposure to community linguistic diversity affects monolingual children’s development of language awareness and whether those effects differ from the effects of multilingualism on children’s development of language awareness. Participants were three- to five-year-old children who were (1) monolingual and from a linguistically homogeneous community, (2) monolingual and from a linguistically diverse community, or (3) multilingual and from a linguistically diverse community. Results from Experiment 1 suggest that community linguistic diversity and multilingualism affect only some aspects of language awareness—specifically language labeling abilities and ability to talk about communicative consequences—but not other aspects of language awareness.

          Experiment 2 sought to examine whether brief exposure to one foreign language affects language awareness development—specifically, the aspects of language awareness found to differ by exposure to community linguistic diversity in Experiment 1. Participants were four- and five-year-old children who were monolingual and from a linguistically homogeneous community. Half of these children participated in a brief foreign language exposure intervention, and their language awareness was measured before and after the intervention. Findings from Experiment 2 revealed that brief exposure to a foreign language did not affect any aspect of language awareness development examined in this dissertation and suggest that other aspects of foreign language exposure should be examined in future research.

          By examining different types of foreign language experience and different aspects of language awareness, this dissertation begins to elucidate how different language environments and foreign language experiences may have differing effects on specific aspects of language awareness. This dissertation expands on the literature on the effects of diverse language environments on children’s language awareness development, and critically, provides a first step to understanding what aspect of foreign language exposure may be underlying language awareness development.

            Cover page: The Effects of Community Linguistic Diversity and Multilingualism on Children’s Development of Language Awareness
            • Article
            • Peer Reviewed
            Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, Volume 31 (2009)
              Cover page: Conceptualizations of Gender in Language
              • Article
              • Peer Reviewed
              Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, Volume 37 (2015)
              Little is known about how the experience of being bilingual and speaking two languages leads to advantages in cognitive control and flexibility (e.g., Bialystok & Martin, 2004). This study investigated productive vocabulary and knowledge of translation equivalents (TEs) as possible mechanisms underlying the bilingual advantage in cognitive flexibility and control. Spanish-English bilingual two-year-olds performed the Reverse Categorization Task (RCT; Carlson et al., 2004), which requires cognitive flexibility and control. Each child’s caregiver also completed the MCDI for English and Spanish to obtain a measure of each child’s productive vocabulary and knowledge of TEs. Correlation analyses showed that performance on the RCT was significantly correlated with productive knowledge of TEs but not cognates. These findings suggest that the experience of producing different words with the same meaning in two languages, as well as choosing between those words, may be an early mechanism underlying the bilingual advantage in cognitive control.
                Cover page: Apple, pomme, manzana: Productive vocabulary and cognitive flexibility in bilingual preschoolers
                • Article
                • Peer Reviewed
                UCLA Previously Published Works (2016)
                Developing understanding of fractions involves connections between nonsymbolic visual representations and symbolic representations. Initially, teachers introduce fraction concepts with visual representations before moving to symbolic representations. Once the focus is shifted to symbolic representations, the connections between visual representations and symbolic notation are considered to be less useful, and students are rarely asked to connect symbolic notation back to visual representations. In 2 experiments, we ask whether visual representations affect understanding of symbolic notation for adults who understand symbolic notation. In a conceptual fraction comparison task (e.g., Which is larger, 5 / a or 8 / a?), participants were given comparisons paired with accurate, helpful visual representations, misleading visual representations, or no visual representations. The results show that even college students perform significantly better when accurate visuals are provided over misleading or no visuals. Further, eye-tracking data suggest that these visual representations may affect performance even when only briefly looked at. Implications for theories of fraction understanding and education are discussed.
                  Cover page: The Role of Visual Representations in College Students’ Understanding of Mathematical Notation
                  • Article
                  • Peer Reviewed
                  UCLA Previously Published Works (2022)
                  Although linguistic and nonlinguistic cues help young children infer meaning when presented with unfamiliar words, little is known about how syntactic information and early bilingual experience shape word learning. This study examined how monolingual and bilingual 24- to 30-month-olds' disambiguation of novel words during a mutual exclusivity task differs as a function of syntactic cues, age, and productive vocabulary. English monolinguals and Spanish-English bilinguals were presented with familiar and novel objects within a syntactic context (e.g., "Give me the blick!") or in isolation (e.g., "Blick!"). Results showed that monolinguals and bilinguals adhered to mutual exclusivity more often when provided with syntactic cues than when those cues were absent. Furthermore, bilinguals' mutually exclusive disambiguation of novel words increased with age, but only when syntactic cues were available. These results provide insight into factors that influence children's disambiguation of novel words. The theoretical implications of these findings are discussed.
                    Cover page: The role of syntactic cues in monolingual and bilingual two-year-olds’ novel word disambiguationCreative Commons 'BY' version 4.0 license
                    • Article
                    • Peer Reviewed
                    UCLA Previously Published Works (2016)
                    Children prefer to learn from people who are like themselves. However, who is considered "like themselves" is complex for bilingual children. Thus, the current study examined whether children's language experiences affect who they prefer to imitate. A sample of 3- to 5-year-old monolingual English-speaking children (n=16), Japanese-English bilingual children (n=16), and children bilingual in English and a non-Japanese language (n=16) watched videos of a monolingual English speaker and a Japanese-English bilingual speaker playing with novel toys and were asked to play with the same novel toys. Although all children--regardless of language background--imitated the monolingual speaker at similar rates, the two bilingual groups imitated the bilingual speaker more often than did the monolingual children. Such results suggest that experience in speaking two languages affects children's imitation behaviors.
                      Cover page: Children’s use of linguistic information when learning in a bilingual contextCreative Commons 'BY-NC-ND' version 4.0 license
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