CURRENT PROJECTS
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
PAST PROJECTS
How does a second language proficiency and immersion experience modulate interference between languages? Control mechanisms underlying language comprehension in bilinguals.
The main goal of the present project is to investigate cognitive processes underlying language comprehension in bilinguals. A particular focus of the project is on the role that second language proficiency as well as immersion in a second language environment have on language interference and inhibitory control in the bilingual mind. Based on previous research it is hypothesized that high L2 proficiency is related to more efficient resolution of cross-language interference. Immersion in a second language environment, in turn, is expected to limit easiness of access to the native language and cause significant interference from a second language to a native one. We will also explore potential contribution of individual differences in domain-general cognitive control on efficiency of language control in bilingual comprehension.
Principal Investigator: Joanna Durlik
Support: Preludium, National Science Centre
Photo by David Ballew on Unsplash
Does bilingualism improve cognitive control mechanism? – investigaton of behavioral indices and neural correlates.
The main goal of the project is to establish the relations between three different types of bilingualism (single-language context / dual-language context / dense code switching) and effectiveness of cognitive/executive control in bilingual population on behavioral and neural (ERPs) levels.
Principal Investigator: Patrycja Kałamała
Support: Diamond Grant, Ministry of Science and Higher Education
Photo by Bret Kavanaugh on Unsplash
How bilingual experience influences flexibility of the cognitive system. Neural bases and consequences for social categorization.
In this project we focus on the impact of bilingualism and second language expertise on three levels of analysis: cognitive (the mind), neural (the brain) and social (thoughts about, and interactions with, others). We build on the assumption, fundamental to contemporary cognitive science, that the three levels interact and that a full understanding of mental functions is only possible when all three perspectives are taken into account. In the current studies, we investigate the development of control processes and mental flexibility during the course of second language immersion and in different forms of bilingualism. In order to pinpoint neural changes that underlie the development of second language expertise, we use event-related potentials (ERPs) in addition to behavioural measures. ERP is an electrophysiological technique that measures the brain activity via electrodes attached to the scalp. Unlike other neuroimaging methods, ERP offers excellent temporal resolution. It provides highly detailed information about the time course of neurocognitive processes and may thus reveal aspects of skill development that may be overlooked in purely behavioral assessment.
Principal Investigator: dr. Zofia Wodniecka
Support: project “FOCUS”, Foundation for Polish Science
Photo by Luke Porter on Unsplash
Development of bilingualism and cognitive control functionning – behavioral and psychophysiological investigation.
The main goal of the project is to explore the influence of second language (L2) expertise on the first language (L1) proficiency and cognitive control functioning. We test two main conclusions from our previous studies which have indicated that: (1) bilingualism is related to more effective attentional system, (2) L1 inhibition is caused by intensive L2 usage. In the longitudinal project (three testing waves within two-year period), the experimental group consists of high school students partially enrolled in English curriculum (12 hrs of lessons in English per week), whereas the control group consists of high school students, who learn English only as a foreign language (4 hrs per week).
Principal Investigator: dr. Zofia Wodniecka
Support: competition no 40, Ministry of Science and Higher Education, next National Science Centre
Photo by Green Chameleon on Unsplash
Language and Cognitive Development in Polish Bilingual Children – chances and problems.
This project is part of the European research collaboration COST IS0804 (bi-sli.org), which investigates typical cognitive and linguistic development of bilingual children in different European countries. In collaboration with researchers from the University of Warsaw, we are working on the development of new methods to study linguistic and cognitive abilities in Polish bilingual children. Language development in bilingual children is slightly delayed in comparison with monolingual children and some of these natural delays might be interpreted as severe developmental impairments by care-takers, speech therapists and psychologists. In clinical practice, the symptoms can be mistaken with some characteristics of Specific Language Impairment. The COST project was established in order to tackle this problem on a European scale and our research should conclude in: 1) the characterization of the typical language development of Polish children acquiring English in a natural bilingual context (emigration), 2) the development of methods and techniques used in the assessment of linguistic development in Polish mono – and bilinguals. More information on this project is available on http://psychologia.pl/bi-sli-pl/
Principal Investigators: prof. Ewa Haman (University of Warsaw), dr hab. Zofia Wodniecka (Jagiellonian University)
Support: Ministry of Science and Higher Education, next National Science Centre
Photo by Paul Hanaoka on Unsplash
Functional decomposition of lexical access – event-related potentials study.
The present research project aims at finding what is the functional underpinning of lexical access (the process of retrieval of information associated with a word form the long-term memory, important for understanding the word in its context). More specifically, the project will try to answer two following questions: 1) is lexical access inevitably tied to semantic integration of a word with its semantic context? 2) when a word is processed, does the language comprehension system retrieve all semantic information associated with the word from the long-term memory, or it does so only with respect to information associated with the current context? The answer to these two questions will not only provide important information about language processing in general, but will also be informative with respect to better understanding the N400 component itself.
Principal Investigator: Jakub Szewczyk
Support: OPUS 3, National Science Centre
Subtlex-pl
SUBTLEX-PL – Polish word frequencies based on movie subtitles. In two lexical decision experiments, we compare the new measures with frequency estimates derived from another Polish text corpus that includes predominantly written materials. We show that the frequencies derived from the two corpora perform best in predicting human performance in a lexical decision task if used in a complementary way. Our results suggest that the two corpora may have unequal potential for explaining human performance for words in different frequency ranges and that corpora based on written materials severely overestimate frequencies for formal words. We discuss some of the implications of these findings for future studies comparing different frequency estimates. In addition to frequencies for word forms, SUBTLEX-PL includes measures of contextual diversity, part-of-speech-specific word frequencies, frequencies of associated lemmas, and word bigrams, providing researchers with necessary tools for conducting psycholinguistic research in Polish. The database is freely available for research purposes and may be downloaded from the authors’ university Web site at here.
Principal Investigator: Paweł Mandera (Ghent University)
Photo by Dakota Corbin on Unsplash
