Cognitive gains in 7-month-old bilingual infants. Kovács, Á. M. & Mehler, J. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A, 106(16):6556–6560, 2009.
doi  abstract   bibtex   
Children exposed to bilingual input typically learn 2 languages without obvious difficulties. However, it is unclear how preverbal infants cope with the inconsistent input and how bilingualism affects early development. In 3 eye-tracking studies we show that 7-month-old infants, raised with 2 languages from birth, display improved cognitive control abilities compared with matched monolinguals. Whereas both monolinguals and bilinguals learned to respond to a speech or visual cue to anticipate a reward on one side of a screen, only bilinguals succeeded in redirecting their anticipatory looks when the cue began signaling the reward on the opposite side. Bilingual infants rapidly suppressed their looks to the first location and learned the new response. These findings show that processing representations from 2 languages leads to a domain-general enhancement of the cognitive control system well before the onset of speech.
@Article{Kovacs2009b,
  author      = {\'Agnes Melinda Kov\'acs and Jacques Mehler},
  journal     = {Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A},
  title       = {Cognitive gains in 7-month-old bilingual infants.},
  year        = {2009},
  number      = {16},
  pages       = {6556--6560},
  volume      = {106},
  abstract    = {Children exposed to bilingual input typically learn 2 languages without
	obvious difficulties. However, it is unclear how preverbal infants
	cope with the inconsistent input and how bilingualism affects early
	development. In 3 eye-tracking studies we show that 7-month-old infants,
	raised with 2 languages from birth, display improved cognitive control
	abilities compared with matched monolinguals. Whereas both monolinguals
	and bilinguals learned to respond to a speech or visual cue to anticipate
	a reward on one side of a screen, only bilinguals succeeded in redirecting
	their anticipatory looks when the cue began signaling the reward
	on the opposite side. Bilingual infants rapidly suppressed their
	looks to the first location and learned the new response. These findings
	show that processing representations from 2 languages leads to a
	domain-general enhancement of the cognitive control system well before
	the onset of speech.},
  doi         = {10.1073/pnas.0811323106},
  keywords    = {Acoustic Stimulation; Cognition, physiology; Cues; Female; Humans; Infant; Male; Multilingualism; Photic Stimulation},
  language    = {eng},
  medline-pst = {ppublish},
  pmid        = {19365071},
  school      = {Cognitive Neuroscience Sector, Scuola Internazionale Superiore di Studi Avanzati, Via Beirut 4, 34014 Trieste, Italy. agneskovacs@mtapi.hu},
  timestamp   = {2010.11.03},
}

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