Ajay Rajaram & Neha Gupta

AIM AND MOTIVATION  Cognitive Science, Creativity and Design and Cognition, and an interest in Natural Language fueled the idea of this project---to find out if there is any link between the three things, and if so, what it is.  Studies on the impact of multilingualism on cognition have not been as widespread as might be imagined.

Readings of Note  A comparison of second language learners and monolinguals on divergent thinking tasks at the elementary school level (Richard Landry, 1974)  Cognitive and Linguistic processing in the mind (Ellen Bialystok, Fergus I. M. Craik(2010)  Reshaping the mind: the benefits of bilingualism (Ellen Bialystok, 2011)  Bilingualism and Creativity across cultures (Antoliy Kharkurin)

Methodology  Literature survey: We did a literature survey of the papers mentioned in the previous slide and a few others, and consolidated the information from them to form some substantial conclusions

Methodology contd.  Survey on multilingualism and executive functioning: To support our claims from the literature survey, we performed a survey that had 41 respondents. The survey addressed questions relating to the linguistic background of the participants, and questions about their executive cognitive functioning.

Results of the Lit. Survey  The major outcomes of the literature survey were in relation to two aspects of cognition: executive control and functioning, and divergent thinking.

Executive Control and Multilingualism  Multilinguals have been found to perform better at multitasking and also at tasks that involve context-switching and the inhibition of “habitual” or “learned” responses.  Monolinguals, however, were found to perform better on single, focused tasks

Divergent thinking and Multilingualism  Richard Landry, in his 1974 paper, concluded that second language learners had a better ability to interpret data in varied forms and to switch roles based on context.  He claimed that having to learn multiple languages independent of each other in usage, grammar and structure facilitated the development of these abilities which in turn aid divergent thinking in multilinguals.

Neurological Support for these claims  Interestingly, Bialystok (2011) reports an fMRI study that revealed that at least four regions of the brain involved with executive control were also involved with language.  Also, in bilinguals, the Broca’s area of the brain normally associated exclusively with language, was found to be activated on executive control tasks.

Results of our Survey  The major findings of the survey include: Multilingual people are significantly more likely to procrastinate than monolinguals  Multilinguals overall are better at multitasking, and are significantly more likely to take on more than one task at a time.  Multilinguals are also able to work better at a series of different tasks in a row

All Survey scores are out of 3, and averaged over a population of 13 monolinguals and 28 multilinguals.

 On the other hand, monolinguals are more comfortable with a single task even if it involves a large number of steps-multilinguals seem to prefer getting more tasks done in a fewer number of steps per task.  This is further supported by the data that shows that multilinguals prefer to think thatt here are quick solutions to problems and try to arrive at them.  Monolinguals also seem to have much less difficulty completing a single task.

Concluding Remarks  From both the literature and the survey we conclude that there certainly are differences in the cognitive styles and abilities of monolinguals and multilinguals: the latter having the advantage in multitasking and the former, the advantage of focus.  Neurological evidence supports the view that executive control for context-switching, unlearning habituated responses are highly developed in multilinguals  Multilingualism would appear to facilitate Divergent Thinking.

Acknowledgements  Dr. Ellen Do for having helped us carry out the survey to great effect, and for having given us the opportunity to explore this interesting question!  The class of Creativity and Design Cognition, Spring 2012, and everyone else who responded to our survey and thereby made our project so much richer.  Adultadd.info for the survey questions on executive functioning

References  Richard Landry (1974) A comparison of second language learners and monolinguals on divergent thinking tasks at the elementary school level  Ellen Bialystok, Fergus I. M. Craik (2010) Cognitive and Linguistic processing in the mind  Ellen Bialystok (2011) Reshaping the mind: the benefits of bilingualism  Antoliy Kharkurin, Bilingualism and Creativity across cultures  Medha Tare, Susan Gelman (2010), Can you say it another way? Cognitive factors in bilingual children’s pragmatic language skills

THANK YOU.