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A multilingual advantage in the components of working memory

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 October 2017

KATE COCKCROFT Open the ORCID record for KATE COCKCROFT [Opens in a new window] ,
MANDY WIGDOROWITZ  and
LUZANNE LIVERSAGE
KATE COCKCROFT*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, School of Human and Community Development, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa
MANDY WIGDOROWITZ
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, School of Human and Community Development, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa
LUZANNE LIVERSAGE
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, School of Human and Community Development, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa
*
Address for correspondence: Department of Psychology, School of Human and Community Development, University of the Witwatersrand, P.O. WITS, 2050, Johannesburg, South Africa. [email protected]
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Abstract

This study compared working memory ability in multilingual young adults and their monolingual peers on four components of working memory (verbal and visuospatial storage, verbal and visuospatial processing). The sample comprised 39 monolingual English speakers, and 39 multilinguals, who spoke an African language as their first and third languages, and English as their second language, all with high levels of proficiency. The multilingual young adults came from lower socioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds and possessed smaller English vocabularies than the monolinguals, features which make this group an under-researched population. Both when SES and verbal ability were and were not statistically controlled, there was evidence of a multilingual advantage in all of the working memory components, which was most pronounced in visuospatial processing. These findings support evidence from bilinguals showing cognitive advantages beyond inhibitory control, and suggest that multilingualism may influence the executive control system generally.

Keywords

bilingual advantageexecutive functioningmultilingualismworking memory
Type
Research Article
Information
Bilingualism: Language and Cognition , Volume 22 , Issue 1 , January 2019 , pp. 15 - 29
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

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Footnotes

The financial assistance of the National Research Foundation (NRF) towards this research is hereby acknowledged. Opinions expressed, and conclusions arrived at, are those of the author and are not necessarily to be attributed to the NRF.

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