Beyond Bilingual: The Interpreter Advantage Brooke N. Macnamara & Andrew R. A. Conway

1. Beyond Bilingual: The Interpreter Advantage Brooke N. Macnamara & Andrew R. A. Conway Princeton University 1 2 3 Introduction Methods Results & Discussion Predictors 1)Magnitude of Bilingual Management Demands Low: bimodal (signed-spoken language) bilinguals - American Sign Language (ASL) students High: simultaneous interpreters - ASL-English interpreter students 2)Amount of Experience with Demands Low: beginning students (mid-1st semester) High: advanced students (mid-4th semester) Experience with Demands LowHigh Measures Constructs recruited during interpreting • Task Switching• Processing Speed • Reasoning • Working Memory Capacity • Coordination & Transformation • Complex Span (control tasks) • The bilingual advantage: enhanced cognitive control in bilinguals relative to monolinguals • The source of the advantage1,2: - experience resolving conflict - experience selecting target language • The problem: results are inconsistent - some researchers find no bilingual-monolingual differences3,4 Experience with Bilingual Management Demands LowHigh = Beginning ASL students Advanced ASL students No advantage Magnitude of Demands HighLow No effects of experience when demand is low < < Beginning interpreter students Advanced interpreter students Advantage Effects of experience when demand is high Cognitive enhancements among advanced interpreter students Between-Groups Contrasts: ASL-Advanced interpreter students ASL students Advanced interpreter students * p < .05 ** p < .01 *** p < .001 d Cohen’s d effect size Beginning ASL students Advanced ASL students Processing Speed Reasoning Task Switching Magnitude of Demands HighLow Cross-sectional *** d = 1.08 *** d = .94 * d = .61 *** d = 1.08 *** d = .94 ** d = 1.11 • Our hypothesis: - bilingual demands are not uniform - cognitive enhancements depend on: 1) magnitude of the bilingual demands 2) amount of experience Beginning interpreter students Advanced interpreter students Longitudinal Working Memory Capacity Coordination & Transformation Maintenance & Interference Letter-Number Sequencing *** d = 1.02 ** d = .75 ns d = .36 *** d = 1.15 Within-Group Contrasts: Beginning-Advanced interpreter students • Hypothesis support: bimodal (signed-spoken language) bilinguals do not demonstrate a bilingual advantage5 - distinct motor/perceptual pathways reduce conflict resolution demands5 target language selection demands6 Advanced interpreter students Beginning interpreter students †p < .08 * p < .05 ** p < .01 d Cohen’s d effect size Task Switching Processing Speed Reasoning Predictions 1) Magnitude of demands  cognitive advantage 2) Experience  cognitive advantage low demand = no advantage (regardless of experience) high demand + high experience = advantage ns d = .63 † d = .99 * d = .67 † d = .65 ns d = .46 ** d = 1.91 Working Memory Capacity = Maintenance & Interference Coordination & Transformation Beginning ASL student Advanced ASL students Letter-Number Sequencing ns d = .18 ns d = .05 * d = .76 * d = .85 < REFERENCES: 1Bialystok, E. (1999). Cognitive complexity and attentional control in the bilingualmind. Child Development, 70(3), 636-644. 2Green, D. W. (1998). Mental control of the bilingual lexico-semantic system. Bilingualism: Language and cognition, 1(02), 67-81. 3Morton, J. B., & Harper, S. N. (2007). What did Simon say? Revisiting the bilingual advantage. Developmental Science, 10(6), 719-726. 4Paap, K., Imai, J., Urtecho, C., Alcaine, E., & Keenan, J. (2011). There is no bilingual advantage in executive processing for young adults. Paper presented at the 52nd Annual Meeting of the Psychonomics Society, Seattle, WA. 5Emmorey, K., Luk, G., Pyers, J. E., & Bialystok, E. (2008). The source of enhanced cognitive control in bilinguals: Evidence from bimodal bilinguals. Psychological Science, 19(12), 1201-1206. 6Emmorey, K., Borinstein, H. B., Thompson, R., & Gollan, T. H. (2008). Bimodal bilingualism. Bilingualism (Cambridge, England), 11(1), 43. ASL students Adv. interpreter students < Beginning interpreter students Adv. interpreter students