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Mechanisms of language control underlying bilingual speech production: fMRI investigation.
How does our brain handle two (or more) languages? Why do we forget our native language even after a short stay abroad? How does the mind choose the right language, when the same thought could just as well be expressed in any other language that we know?
These are only some of the questions that motivate our research project. Our aim is to better understand how the bilingual mind copes with competing languages. In the experiments, we will ask native speakers of Polish who also know English to name pictures in both languages. The language of naming will change from time to time, which will allow us to capture and describe the mechanisms that help us use a foreign language. We will test how accurately and quickly the participants name the pictures and, by using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we will examine what happens in their brains while they perform a given task. Thanks to employing the state-of-the-art analytic techniques (e.g. MVPA), we will be able to trace even subtle changes as participants adapt to the constantly changing task.
The project will enable us to refine and advance theories of bilingual language processing. By looking at which brain areas get engaged as bilinguals produce speech, we will overcome limitations of previous research, which investigated pure behavior or electrophysiological activity of the brain. Our research will help us better understand bilingualism, as well as the abilities of human brain to adapt in a constantly changing situation. In a longer run, the outcomes of this and similar research projects should have implications for understanding challenges and benefits of bilingualism and inform second language education and clinical practice pertaining to bilingual individuals.
Principal Investigator: dr hab. Zofia Wodniecka
Co-Investigators: Dr. Marcin Szwed (Jagiellonian University), Dr. Jakub Szewczyk (University of Illinois) and Dr. Michele Diaz (Penn State University, USA).
Support: OPUS, National Science Centre
Photo by Robina Weermeijer on Unsplash
Competition or cooperation? Impact of short-term and long-term language experience on language regulation and cognitive functions in bilinguals.
The overarching goal of the project program is to build foundations for better understanding of how different types of language experience affect cognitive and linguistic processes. More specifically, we aim at identifying factors which facilitate and hinder language skills in bilinguals. Although bilingualism and second language learning have gained a great scientific interest in the past two decades, still little is known about the precise mechanisms and conditions that help overcome language competition and that lead to an ultimately successful between-language cooperation. We want to enhance scientific understanding of how prior language experiences (e.g. language learning history and context of language use) modify the ways in which bilinguals access and control their languages.
Two types of language experience will be investigated: short-term (related to experimental manipulations) and long-term (related to a life event, i.e. migration) and their impact on language production and comprehension. Our primary focus will be on the impact on native language processing, a topic that up until recently has been largely neglected in past research on bilingualism. Moreover, we will explore how different types of language experience contribute to the hypothesized link between language control and cognitive control. At the core of the project program are the questions of the mechanisms and consequences of the interplay between language and cognition.
Principal Investigator: dr hab. Zofia Wodniecka
Support: Sonata BIS, National Science Centre
The flexibility of social categorization: how bilingual experience influences social information processing
The main goal of the project is to explore the impact of bilingualism in social information processing and, more specifically, in stereotype control. Although there is preliminary evidence indicating that bilinguals show greater flexibility in the categorization of social stimuli (i.e., faces), little is known about the impact of bilingualism in stereotype control, a process that requires cognitive flexibility.
Since the processing of stereotypes is guided by individual motivations and goals, in this project we also analyse the role of motivational variables (e.g., motivation to control prejudice) in the ability to exert stereotype control among bilinguals and monolinguals.
For more information please contact Sofía Castro: sofia.gonzalez.castro@uj.edu.pl
Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash
Context matters: the impact of language experience on cognitive control
The main objective of this project is to investigate how cognitive control skills flexibly adjust depending on the type of language context a bilingual is in. For example, conversational contexts change depending on the person a bilingual speaks with. When having a conversation with (a) monolingual(s) you need to stick to one language, but when the speakers have different languages or are bilingual, we sometimes must switch between our languages. We explore how cognitive control mechanisms like attention and interference control flexibly adjust to the context to reach effective communication.
For more information please contact dr Kalinka Timmer: kalinka.timmer@uj.edu.pl
Picture by GibetMoll from Pixabay
