Empirical studies on bilingual children’s reference production have often focussed on comparisons with monolingual peers. In this study, we introduce the concept of ‘reference profiles’: Speakers may exhibit similar or different behaviours in reference production, independently of whether they belong to a specific group (e.g., monolinguals or bilinguals) or whether their production adheres to some norm. Thirty-seven Greek–Italian bilingual children (Mage = 9;4, range 7;10–11;6) performed narrative retelling tasks in both of their languages, as well as vocabulary tasks and various cognitive tasks. The results show that the children had a good mastery of reference (i.e., appropriately using null pronouns, full pronouns or full nouns) in both of their languages. Using cluster analyses, we identified two distinct reference profiles. Further investigation showed that these profiles differed in both their sustained attention and in the use of overspecified referring expressions in contexts where reference to the same referent was maintained. These results are interpreted in light of current cognitive theories of (bilingual) reference processing and emphasise the potential of reference profiles for the study of other domains beyond bilingual reference production.

The nature and processing of semantic illusions (SI; when speakers fail to notice an anomalous word in a sentence that is contextually perfectly aligned with world knowledge) have been largely studied during first language comprehension. Although this issue is not free of controversy, findings sustain The Node Structure Theory, according to which SI is a phonological and/or semantic priming effect which occurs due to phonological and/or semantic links existing between the correct and the anomalous word. However, the question as to whether the same underlying mechanisms can be found in bilinguals and whether the effect is modulated by age of language acquisition (AoA) and language dominance remains unexplored. The aim of this study was to examine this issue on sequential European Portuguese-German bilinguals (and their respective control groups) using a self-paced reading paradigm. The sentences’ language, AoA (early vs. late), and type of target word used (correct vs. anomalous) were manipulated. Results showed the occurrence of SI, independently of language and AoA. Therefore, findings suggest that SI occur due to a semantic overlap between critical words and are similarly processed in L1 and L2.

Cross-linguistic interactions are the hallmark of bilingual development. Theoretical perspectives highlight the key role of cross-linguistic distances and language structure in literacy development. Despite the strong theoretical assumptions, the impact of such bilingualism factors in heritage-language speakers remains elusive given high variability in children's heritage-language experiences. A longitudinal inquiry of heritage-language learners of structurally distinct languages – Spanish–English and Chinese–English bilinguals (N = 181, Mage = 7.57, measured 1.5 years apart) aimed to fill this gap. Spanish–English bilinguals showed stronger associations between morphological awareness skills across their two languages, across time, likely reflecting cross-linguistic similarities in vocabulary and lexical morphology between Spanish and English. Chinese–English bilinguals, however, showed stronger associations between morphological and word reading skills in English, likely reflecting the critical role of morphology in spoken and written Chinese word structure. The findings inform theories of literacy by uncovering the mechanisms by which bilingualism factors influence child literacy development.

The ability to acquire the speech sounds of a second language has consistently been found to be constrained with increasing age of acquisition. Such constraints have been explained either through cross-linguistic influence in bilingual speakers or as the result of maturational declines in neural plasticity with age. Here, we disentangle these two explanations by investigating speech production in adults who were adopted from China to Sweden as toddlers, lost their first language, and became monolingual speakers of the second language. Although we find support for predictions based on models of bilingual language acquisition, these results cannot be explained by the bilingual status of the learners, indicating instead a long-term influence of early specialization for speech that is independent of bilingual language use. These findings are discussed in light of first-language interference and the theory of maturational constraints for language acquisition.

We tested how the bilingual processing system adapts to high attentional processing loads, using a dual selective attention task. We also tested how this adaptation changes with maturation, by comparing the performance of monolingual and bilingual children and adults. Results showed equivalent performance on aspects of the dual attention task (auditory comprehension and visual task accuracy) for monolinguals and bilinguals in both age groups. Reaction times from the visual task however revealed differences between groups, with bilingual children's responses significantly slower relative to monolingual children under high processing load, but the bilingual adults' performance equivalent to their monolingual counterparts. The results suggest that the adaptation of bilingual selective attention changes with maturation: high attentional processing demands lead to economising of the available attentional capacity and task prioritisation in children, but these effects recede as the attentional system fully matures, resulting in consistent optimal performance across elements of multiple tasks in bilinguals.

Using an action compatibility task, we investigated whether POWER is embodied in terms of upward and downward movement in two languages (first and dominant language: Chinese; second language: English). Chinese-English bilinguals were asked to quickly and accurately categorize power-related words (e.g., “boss,” “intern”) as “powerful” or “powerless.” The response to indicate that the word was “powerful” required an upward movement in the compatible condition, while the response to indicate “powerless” involved a downward movement. These responses were reversed in the incompatible condition (“powerful”-downward/“powerless”-upward). When the response actions were compatible rather than incompatible, participants were faster to categorize the words. Furthermore, the action compatibility effect was observed in both languages, but surprisingly the action compatibility effect was larger in their L2. The findings support the psychological reality of the “POWER IS UP” conceptual metaphor that is active when participants process language in both their primary and secondary languages.

We examined brain and cognitive reserve related to bilingualism in older adults with, or at-risk for, Alzheimer's disease (AD) from the Canadian Consortium on Neurodegeneration in Aging and the Quebec Consortium for the Early Identification of Alzheimer's Disease. We used surface-based morphometry methods to measure cortical thickness and volume of language-related and AD-related brain regions. We did not observe evidence of brain reserve in language-related regions. However, reduced hippocampal volume was observed for monolingual, but not bilingual, older adults with AD. Thus, bilingualism is hypothesized to contribute to reserve in the form of brain maintenance in the context of AD.

Bilinguals frequently switch between languages. The present study examined cued language switching (CLS) longitudinally in bilingual Turkish–Dutch children with (n = 11) and without (n = 30) developmental language disorder (DLD) in a three-wave design with one-year intervals. We studied effects of dominance, indexed by language proficiency and exposure, on overall switching performance and the costs associated with switching between languages. Results show limited evidence for overall costs associated with language switching (i.e., only mixing costs in reaction times [RTs]). Further, accuracy on CLS increased with increasing dominance in the trial language. Moreover, better performance, and larger switching costs, were found in the majority (Dutch) compared to the minority (Turkish) language. These results are discussed in light of the sociolinguistic context. As hypothesized, more errors, longer RTs and slightly larger mixing costs were observed in children with DLD, suggesting overall word retrieval difficulties and difficulties with cognitive control.

The effect of translation knowledge on bilingual lexical production is mixed, with some studies showing translation interference and others showing facilitation. We considered the roles of first-language (L1) translation knowledge and second-language (L2) proficiency in lexical retrieval, testing predictions of the competition for selection, frequency lag and activation boosting accounts. In experiment 1, 54 highly proficient Spanish–English bilinguals named pictures of low-frequency nouns in English (L2). Spanish (L1) translation knowledge and English proficiency had an interactive effect on tip-of-the-tongue experiences with increased L1 translation interference at low levels of L2 proficiency and facilitation at high levels of L2 proficiency, consistent with combined predictions of competition for selection and activation boosting accounts. Experiment 2 confirmed that confounding lexical variables did not drive translation effects. By examining individual differences within bilinguals, we found support for multiple mechanisms that play a role in bilingual lexical retrieval that were not evident at the group level.

Recent conceptualisations of bilingualism are moving away from strict categorisations, towards continuous approaches. This study supports this trend by combining empirical psycholinguistics data with machine learning classification modelling. Support vector classifiers were trained on two datasets of coded productions by Italian speakers to predict the class they belonged to (“monolingual”, “attriters” and “heritage”). All classes can be predicted above chance (>33%), even if the classifier's performance substantially varies, with monolinguals identified much better (f-score >70%) than attriters (f-score <50%), which are instead the most confusable class. Further analyses of the classification errors expressed in the confusion matrices qualify that attriters are identified as heritage speakers nearly as often as they are correctly classified. Cluster clitics are the most identifying features for the classification performance. Overall, this study supports a conceptualisation of bilingualism as a continuum of linguistic behaviours rather than sets of a priori established classes.

This study investigates how a foreign language impacts social norms. We tested this by comparing the magnitude of response differences between norm-violating and norm-adhering behaviors in native language versus foreign language. In experiment 1, participants indicated the acceptability of third-person black and white lies in either their native or foreign language on a Likert scale. In experiment 2, participants indicated their first-person intentions to tell black and white lies on a Likert scale. Experiment 3 conceptually replicated experiment 1 on a slider scale, testing white lies and blunt truths. In experiment 4, participants provided dichotomous yes–no decisions to tell black and white lies. Results revealed a significant reduction of acceptability ratings in experiments 1 and 3 while only showing such a trend in experiments 2 and 4, suggesting language impacts particularly descriptive social norms. Collectively, these findings provide insight into how a foreign language diminishes the influence of social norms.

This study aimed to closely replicate Wiseheart et al. (Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 19(1), 141–146, 2016) by investigating the transferability of language-switching skills to nonlinguistic task switching. Current evidence is mixed and there is a need to conduct robust replications in this area. Bilingual (n = 31) and monolingual (n = 47) young adults characterized stimuli by either colour or shape based on a given cue. Modifications include online data collection (as opposed to in-person) and adapting the nonverbal intelligence test used. All other aspects of the study mirror those by Wiseheart et al. Results indicate that the bilinguals exhibited better cognitive flexibility in task switching, as evidenced by a reduced global switch cost compared with monolinguals. In contrast, mixed evidence was found for local switch costs. Findings mirror those reported by Wiseheart et al. and suggest that by employing comparable task-switch paradigms and recruiting samples matched on several key variables, including age, gender, variety of languages spoken, and use of English, bilingualism does seem to confer broader executive function advantages. Findings are discussed in relation to theoretical implications to inform future replication studies and advance the bilingual advantage in the switching debate.

Cognates are studied in many psychological studies of bilingual language processing. Despite their frequent use, there is no clear operationalized definition of what constitutes a cognate. We conducted a literature search in three major journals to better understand how cognate status is typically defined and operationalized. In these journals, we analyzed similarity of cognate and non-cognate stimuli. We found that approximately 60% of the reviewed studies operationalized cognate status empirically. Stimulus analyses revealed a similarity continuum between cognates and non-cognates without a consistent cut-off. Based on these results, we make recommendations for future research.