The relationship between vocabulary and short-term memory measures in monolingual and bilingual speakers
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[1] University of Wisconsin–Madison
University of Wisconsin–Madison
City of Madison, Estados Unidos
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[2] San Diego State University
San Diego State University
Estados Unidos
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[3] Northwestern University
Northwestern University
Township of Evanston, Estados Unidos
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- Localización: International Journal of Bilingualism: interdisciplinary studies of multilingual behaviour, ISSN 1367-0069, Vol. 15, Nº. 4, 2011, págs. 408-425
- Idioma: inglés
- Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
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Resumen
Previous studies have indicated that bilingualism may influence the efficiency of lexical access in adults. The goals of this research were (1) to compare bilingual and monolingual adults on their native-language vocabulary performance, and (2) to examine the relationship between short-term memory skills and vocabulary performance in monolinguals and bilinguals. In Experiment 1, English-speaking monolingual adults and simultaneous English–Spanish bilingual adults were administered measures of receptive English vocabulary and of phonological short-term memory. In Experiment 2, monolingual adults were compared to sequential English–Spanish bilinguals, and were administered the same measures as in Experiment 1, as well as a measure of expressive English vocabulary. Analyses revealed comparable levels of performance on the vocabulary and the short-term memory measures in the monolingual and the bilingual groups across both experiments. There was a stronger effect of digit-span in the bilingual group than in the monolingual group, with high-span bilinguals outperforming low-span bilinguals on vocabulary measures. Findings indicate that bilingual speakers may rely on short-term memory resources to support word retrieval in their native language more than monolingual speakers.
