Running head: HOW DOES BILINGUALISM AT A 1

How Does Bilingualism at a Young Age Predict Future Success?

Sophie Hirsch

Catawba College

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements of Psychology 3530, Fundamentals of

Cognitive Processes

November 27th, 2019

HOW DOES BILINGUALISM AT A 2

Abstract

In order to examine if bilingualism predicts future success, success being defined by the

amount of money an individual makes over a lifetime, 22 to 29 participants from 3580,

Fundamentals of Cognitive Processes completed a Stroop task, a word superiority task and a

link word task. Results were compared to previous research on bilingual performance in these

tasks. We concluded that in a Stroop task, bilinguals have faster stimulus-stimulus response.

Furthermore, in word superiority tasks bilinguals are able to have pseudoword effects in their

first and second language, while monolinguals were only able to produce such effects in their

first language. Finally, we found that bilinguals have higher word disambiguity and are more

creative, therefore, are able to link word better to objects than monolinguals. Overall, we

conclude that there is a bilingual advantage, however, more longitudinal research will have to

be done to evaluate if this advantage predicts the amount of money an individual makes. Our

findings imply that learning languages from a young age as a means of communication may

be very useful in a society that grows more and more global.

HOW DOES BILINGUALISM AT A 3

How Does Bilingualism at a Young Age Predict Future Success?

Besides a few exceptions, most students that go to college are required to take a

language course for at least three semesters. Bilingualism is defined by a person speaking two

languages and multilingualism is when a person speaks more than two languages (Birner,

2019). In our study, bilingualism will be operationally defined by an individual that claims to

be fluent in more than one language. In many European countries, learning at least one other

language, besides the national language of the country, is part of the academic curriculum. In

fact, most Europeans are taught two foreign languages in school, one of them being English.

According to Birner (2019), multilingualism is a norm in most countries throughout the

world’s different societies. In 2010, 345 new international schools were opened to create a

network of over 1000 international schools (Nagrath, 2010). The mission of these

international schools is to increase a global community, which seems to rise in importance in

a more interconnected world. Students are being taught all their classes in English, are

required to learn the language of the country they are in (this may be as a first language or

second language class depending on their level), and learn a third language, such as French,

Spanish, or Arabic, for at least two years. This not only promotes a multicultural society, but

also emphasizes the importance of learning languages.

However, does being bilingual actually affect success in the future? Ninety percent of

grade 12 student in 2017-2018 that completed the International Baccalaureate Diploma

Program that is offered at most international schools gained places in higher education (ISC

News, 2018). However, these statistics do not prove that the reason for this success in access

to higher education is due to being bilingual. Nevertheless, in favor of the previous statistics,

Singh, Fu, Tay and Golinkoff (2018) found that bilingual infants have an advantage over

monolingual infants in learning new words, as well as the meaning of the new words as they

are more sensitive to vowel changes.

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For the purpose of this study, we will define success as a measurement of the amount

of money that an individual makes in a lifetime. According to Subtirelu (2017), English-

Spanish bilingualism is preferred in the United States labor market; however, the

opportunities are less lucrative than those jobs that do not explicitly prefer English-Spanish

bilingualism. Therefore, income is often a lot less and this would indicate less success for the

purpose of this study. In contrast, the New American Economy (2017) claims that in leading

positions, such as CEOs of campanies, for many international countries, language qualities are

required and bilinguals make a lot more money in these positions. The New American

Economy (2017) raised the issue that less Americans are willing to learn language classes,

even though it benefits them in their future success.

The aim of this study is to investigate how individuals may benefit from knowing

multiple languages, even in tasks that do not involve speaking. Grant and Dennis (2017)

found that bilingual individuals perform significantly faster in the Flanker task than

monolinguals, which indicates better working memory and inhibitory control. The Flanker

test is a task designed to assess how well an individual can repress inappropriate responses in

a particular context (White, Ratcliff & Starns, 2011). In other words, Grant and Dennis (2017)

indicate that there is a relationship between bilingualism and processing speed. Better

memory can lead to less studying required in school and universities, therefore getting better

grades with similar work input. Better grades may lead to further education at a better school

and perhaps to higher paying jobs. With the study by Grant and Dennis (2017), we may

predict that, since bilingual individuals often have better memory which may lead to better job

opportunities and therefore more money made over a lifetime.

In this study, we looked at three specific tasks to investigate and predict whether there

may be an advantage for bilinguals. These tasks included a traditional Stroop task, a word

superiority task and a link word task.

Stroop Task
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The Stroop task is an experiment which demonstrates the difficulty of naming the ink

color of a word when there is a mismatch of the color the word states and the ink (Stroop,

1935). The Stroop task can be used to investigate differences in response times for differences

that occur naturally in the cognitive processes of humans, including language. This study

aimed to provide a broad overview on how the response time in the Stroop task is different in

bilinguals and monolinguals.

Blumenfeld and Marian (2014) examined differences in stimulus-stimulus inhibition

and stimulus-response inhibition, through the Stroop and Simon task, respectively, between

monolinguals and bilinguals. The Simon task required participants to respond to two stimuli

that are either on the same or on different sides of a screen. They predicted that bilinguals

would perform better in the Stroop task than in the Simon task, while monolinguals would not

show any differences. A non-linguistic Stroop and Simon task were completed by participants

where they had to identify either direction of an arrow and the location (Stroop) or only the

direction (Simon) as fast as possible. Blumenfeld and Marian (2014) found that there was an

advantage in the bilingual group in the Stroop task relative to the Simon task and relative to

the monolinguals in the Stroop task. There was an either small or non-existent Stroop-Simon

difference for monolinguals. Therefore, Blumenfeld and Marian (2014) concluded that Stroop

and Simon differences are influenced by the number of languages spoken. Overall,

Blumenfeld and Marian (2014) indicated that bilinguals have an advantage over monolinguals

due to language-cognition interactions.

Looking further into language and the Stroop task, Sabourin and Vinerte (2015)

investigated the cognitive differences in early versus simultaneous bilinguals. Simultaneous

bilinguals are bilinguals that grew up with learning two languages from birth and therefore

have one system which processes both languages. Early bilinguals, in contrast, learned their

second language later in life, however, still before adulthood, and therefore utilize two

different systems for language. In order to evaluate cognitive differences in the Stroop task for
HOW DOES BILINGUALISM AT A 6

both groups, Sabourin and Vinerte (2015) had bilingual participants do three versions of the

Stroop task, one in English, one in French and one mixed version. They found that there was

no difference in response time between simultaneous and early bilinguals for the tasks that

were only in one language. There was, however, a difference in response time in the mixed

task, where simultaneous bilinguals responded faster than early bilinguals. Overall, Sabourin

and Vinerte (2015) concluded that the two types of bilinguals should not be treated the same

as the same group in future research, as they process differently. They also noted that in this

study, which was completed in Ottawa in Canada, where people mainly speak English but

about 40% speak both English and French and learn it either at home or at school, that

environmental context plays a huge role in how we develop and how we learn languages.

Studies on bilingualism suggest that simultaneous bilinguals, that is, bilinguals that

grow up learning two languages from birth on, perform better in the Stroop task. Language-

cognition may be influenced by our language abilities, which may be influenced by our

environment, that is, if we learned languages from birth or not. From previous data of the

Stroop task we hypothesized that participants will have a faster reaction time when words are

congruent, that is, the color of the word and the word matches, than when the words are

incongruent, the words are written in a different color than what they say. We wanted to

identify whether the advantage in stimulus-stimulus recognition may increase the chances for

more success.

Word Superiority Task

The word superiority effect is another cognitive psychology phenomenon where

individuals recognize letters within words better than letters that are isolated or present in

non-words. A continuation of this is the pseudoword effect, which indicates that letter

combinations that are pronounceable are more easily recognized than non-words that are not

pronounceable. Francis and Strobach (2013) found that language recognition was more

proficient in the second language than in the first language. The bilingual advantage parallels
HOW DOES BILINGUALISM AT A 7

the word frequency effect, which we find in the word superiority task, and is attributed to

greater episodic distinctiveness of words in the second language relative to words in the first

language.

Grossi, Murphy and Boggan (2009) identified the word and pseudoword superiority

effect in Italian native speakers, who learned English as a second language and lived for at

least one year in Northern America, and monolingual American controls that have not had

previous linguistic experience with romance languages. Participants completed two word

superiority tasks, one in English and one in Italian. Grossi et al. (2009) found that the English-

speaking controls showed word and pseudoword similarity effects in the English list,

however, not in the Italian list. In contrast, the bilingual participants showed a pseudoword

superiority effect in the English list, but not a word superiority effect, and both a word and

pseudoword superiority effect in the Italian word list. There was no difference in the

performance in the English list for monolinguals and bilinguals. This study by Grossi et al.

(2009) outlines that there are no differences in performance between the second language of

the bilinguals and the monolingual controls. This may indicate that even though the second

language was learned later, it was still as proficient as the first language. Therefore, one can

indicate that speaking multiple languages does not harm the proficiency of one language, but

rather increase the proficiency in many languages for simpler words, as used for the word

lists. For the word superiority, we hypothesized that individuals respond faster to word than

non-words. We wanted to investigate whether responding faster to words may increase the

chances of being more successful by making more money over a lifetime.

Link Word Task

In our link word task, we investigated whether individuals would be able to remember

words better if they created an image. Lee (2011) found that the degree of bilingualism in

Korean-American students was positively correlated to their creativity regardless of gender or

age. Rossman and Fink (2010) found that individuals with higher creativity can create shorter
HOW DOES BILINGUALISM AT A 8

associative pathways, that connect brain structures, and therefore process information faster.

Therefore, our purpose was to investigate whether bilingual individuals would be better in a

link word task as they may be more creative and therefore create shorter associative pathways

due to higher disambiguation.

Byers-Heinlein and Werker (2009) investigated how monolingual, bilingual and

trilingual infants (17 to 18 months) learn words. They looked at how many languages a child

spoke and how broad the infant’s vocabulary was. Infants were given three familiar objects

and one new object. Then they were presented new and familiar words and had to identify the

object that the word belonged to. They found that monolinguals had a lower word

disambiguity, therefore, did not narrow down the meaning of words and identified them

wrong. Byers-Heinlein and Werker (2009) therefore saw language as a predictor for learning

new language more easily, rather than the previous vocabulary.

For the link word task, we hypothesized that words that were provided an image

would be more accurately recalled than words without, as the image would provide a cue for

the English word. For this study, we wanted to investigate whether different word-learning

heuristics between monolinguals and bilinguals can increase the chances of bilinguals for

earning more money over a lifetime and therefore be more successful.

General Introduction

Overall, we conducted these three experiments with the goal of comparing the data to

bilinguals, in order to understand the fundamental cognitive differences between bilingualism

and monolingualism. With the data from previous research and newly produced data, we

proposed how these differences predict future success. In sum, we hypothesized that

bilingualism will increase success by causing individuals to make more money over their

lifetime.

Method

Sample
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For our three studies, participant size varied from 22 participants to 29. 24 participants

were in the Stroop task, of which six were male and 18 were female. In the word superiority

we had 29 participants, where eight were male and 21 were female and in the Peterson-Brown

task we had 22 participants, of which five were male and 17 were female. The participants

ages ranged from 21 to 40 years (M = 23.9, SD = 6.6). All but one were psychology

undergraduates; one was the psychology professor. All participants had experience being

participants in social science experiments, thus were not experimentally naïve.

Apparatus/Materials

For this activity, participants completed the Stroop, word superiority and word link

activities via the CogLab application in the Cengage MindTap learning pathway for Cognitive

Psychology: Connecting Mind, Research, and Everyday Experience (4th ed.) by E. Bruce

Goldstein. Each participant completed the activity on their own. Personal or lab computers of

tablets were used, and keyboards and mouse/mousepads or touchscreens were required.

Distraction was variable as participants may have completed the lab in a variety of places,

such as their homes, dorm rooms, or the library. There may have been background noise or

silence. The time of day was also variable depending on the individual situation.

Stroop Task

Procedure and Intention. First, the participants signed into the CogLab website via

their MindTap eText accounts. Then they navigated to the Labs tab and clicked the Stroop

Effect lab link. The intention of this lab was to understand the difficulty of individuals when

they have to name the color of the ink a word is written in when the color of the ink and the

actual word mismatch. They were directed to the activity page, where instructions were

presented along with the activity space. Procedures closely mimicked those of Stroop (1935).

Instructions read as follows:

If you have logged in, you'll see a black rectangle below. Make sure that you
can see the full area before you begin the lab.
HOW DOES BILINGUALISM AT A 10

Start a trial by pressing the space bar. A fixation dot will appear in the middle
of the window, stare at it. A short time later (less than a second) a word (RED,
GREEN, or BLUE) will appear on the screen, and the word will be printed in
either red, green, or blue. Your task is to classify the color of the font as
quickly as possible, regardless of the actual word. After pressing a key to
identify the font color, you will receive feedback on whether you were correct.
If you were incorrect, the trial will be repeated later in the experiment. If you
find you are making lots of mistakes, you should slow down or make certain
you understood which key goes with which font color. There are at least 48
trials, 24 in which the font colors and word names are different, and 24 in
which the font colors and color names match (e.g., the word "RED" in red font
color).

At the end of the experiment, you will be asked if you want to save your data to
a set of global data.

Participants were told they could choose to add their own data to the global data set if

they wished, and that their data would be gathered into a group with their co-participants’

data for statistical analysis.

The levels of the independent variable being compared were whether the color name

matched the color font, i.e. “same”, or didn’t match, i.e. “different.” The dependent variable

is response time. As such, a correlated groups t-test was conducted to identify whether there

was a significant increase in response time to the different pairings versus the same pairings.

Results. There was a significantly lower response time when the meaning of the word

and the color of the font were same versus when they were different (Fig. 1), t(23) = -6.613,

p=.000. See Appendix A for the statistical output.

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Stroop: Mean Response Time to Same or Different Word-Font Color Pairings

1200
1150
1100
Response Time (ms)

1050
1000
950
900
850
Same Different

Type of Font-Color Pairing

Figure 1: Stroop: Mean Response Time to Same or Different Word-Font Color Pairings.

This bar chart shows mean response time in milliseconds to the two pairings of either same

word and font color, or different word and font color, in the Stroop Effect task (N = 24).

There was a significantly increase in response time when the condition was incongruent

(“different”) between word meaning and font color.

Brief Discussion. A single-trial Stroop task was used in the current study. There was a

significant decrease (Fig. 1) in reaction time when the word meaning matched the font color

(“same” or “congruent”).

Word Superiority Task

Procedure and Intention. First, the participants signed into the CogLab website via

their MindTap eText accounts. Then they navigated to the CogLab application and clicked the

word superiority lab link. The intention of this lab was to reproduce the effect that individuals

can identify letters within words better than when they are isolated or not pronounceable.

They were directed to the activity page, where instructions were presented along with the

activity space. Procedures closely mimicked those of Silverman (1985). Instructions read as

follows:
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If you have logged in, you'll see a rectangle below. Make sure that you can see
the full area before you begin the lab.

On each trial, a fixation point will appear followed by either a valid English
word or by a non-word. Your task is to respond – as quickly and as accurately as
you can – to indicate whether the stimulus is a word or a non-word.

Although there are 96 trials, each takes only a second or two.

At the end of the experiment, you will be asked if you want to save your data to
a set of global data. After you answer the question, a new Web page window
will appear that includes a debriefing, your data, your group's data, and the
global data.

In this study, the independent variable was the status of the two stimuli: either

words or non-word. There were two dependent variables: proportion correct (accuracy)

and response time. Two correlated groups t-tests and Pearson correlations were

conducted to assess the presence of significant effects of the stimulus type in these two

outcome measures, and the relationship between the stimulus type per each depending

factor, respectively.

Results. Two correlated groups t-tests and Pearson correlations were conducted to

determine the effects on the response time and the proportion of accurately recalled items of

words and non-words. Data are available in Appendix B. The first correlated group test on

the proportion correctly recalled word-type items, produced a significant outcome, where

more words (M = 0.95) were correctly recalled than non-words (M = 0.88), t(23) = 3.105, p =

.005, r2 = .30, a medium effect of word stimulus (word or non-word) on proportion correct.

(Fig. 2). There was a no significant Pearson correlation between words and non-words, r(22)

= .193, p = .378.
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Word Superiority: Word Stimulus Type on Proportion Correctly Recalled

1
Proportion Corrextly Recalled
0.8

0.6

0.4

0.2

0
Word Non-Word
Word Stimulus Type

Figure 2: Word Superiority: Word Stimulus Type on Proportion Correctly Recalled (N = 23).

This bar chart shows that more words are being recalled than non-words.

A second correlated groups t-test on the response time of words and non-words was

significant, where words (M = 996.02) were recalled faster than non-words (M = 1171.40),

t(23) = -2.089, p = .048, r2 =.16, a medium effect of stimulus type (word or non-word) on

response type (Fig. 3). There was a significant Pearson correlation of the response time of

words and non-words, r(22) = .695, p = .000, r2 =.02, a small correlation of associated and

non-association word in regards to response time.

Word Superiority: Word Stimulus Type on Response Time (ms)

1200
1150
Response Time (ms)

1100
1050
1000
950
900
Word Non-Word
Word Response Type
HOW DOES BILINGUALISM AT A 14

Figure 3: Word Superiority: Word Stimulus Type on Response Time. The response time for

words was significantly faster than the response type for non-words.

Brief Discussion. In the word superiority task, we found significance both in the

response time between words and non-words, as well as in the response accuracy. If

participants viewed a word, they were more likely to recall it faster and more accurate

than when it was a non-word.

Link Word

Procedure and Intention. First, the participants signed into the CogLab website

via their MindTap eText accounts. Then they navigated to the CogLab application and

clicked the link word lab link. The intention of the lab was to see if words can be

remembered better if participants had to form mental images. After participants were

directed to the activity page, instructions were presented along with the activity space

and read as follows:

If you have logged in, you'll see a rectangle below. Make sure
that you can see the full area before you begin the lab.
There are two parts. In Part 1, on each trial you will see a French
word (with a guide to pronunciation) and the word's meaning in
English. For half the words, you will be asked to form an image.
Try to form as vivid an image as you can, and make sure the two
objects in your image interact. Try to spend 10 seconds
examining your image. For the other half of the words, you will
not be asked to form an image. Spend about as much time
studying the words in the non-image condition, but do not form
an image.
In Part 2, you will be given a vocabulary test. For the test, you
will be shown a French word and will be asked to enter the
English meaning.
At the end of the experiment, you will be asked if you want to
save your data to a set of global data. After you answer the
question, a new Web page window will appear that includes a
debriefing, your data, your group's data, and the global data.

The words and descriptions come from Gruneberg (1994) and are used with

permission of the author, Dr. Michael Gruneberg.

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In this study, the independent variable was whether the participant was instructed to

either create a visual image pair (image) or merely to study the written term (no image). The

dependent measure was the number of accurately recalled definitions from French to English

terms in the second phase. A correlated groups t-test was conducted to identify whether

significant increases in accurate identification of English definitions for French terms

occurred due to the image compared to the no image condition.

Results. A correlated groups t-test failed to show a significant difference in accurate

identification of previously presented French terms between the two conditions of image

versus no image, t(21) = 1.938, p = 0.66, r2 = 0.14, a moderate effect of image condition on

number of correctly recalled terms, after controlling for individual differences (Fig. 4). In

this sample, producing an associated visual image in order to link words together (M =

14.55) did not significantly benefit later accuracy compared to merely thinking about the

term without creating an image (M = 12.96). There was a significant Pearson correlation

between the two conditions r(20) = 0.806, p < .001, r2 = 0.65, a strong, positive relationship

between response accuracy between both image conditions. See Appendix C.

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Figure 4: Link Word: Accurate Identification as a Function of Image Condition (N = 22).

Columns indicate mean number of French terms accurately identified in the test phase based

on trial condition of instruction to create a visual image linking the term to an English term

vs. no image. The image process significantly increased accuracy in the test phase.

Brief Discussion. In the present study, we investigated if creating an image for a word

in a foreign language will help to remember it. We found that creating a mental image

increased the accurate identification of a word. This proved our hypothesis that by interacting

with the word and creating an image for it, we are more likely to remember it that with rote

learning strategies.

Discussion

Stroop

Blumenfeld and Marian (2014) examined differences in stimulus-stimulus inhibition

and stimulus-response inhibition, through the Stroop and Simon task, respectively, between

monolinguals and bilinguals. Although we did not specifically look at a comparison between

the Stroop and the Simon task, our results did agree with the overall findings of the Stroop

task that individuals respond faster when the ink and the word is congruent. Blumenfeld and

Marian (2014) state that stimulus-stimulus response is faster in bilinguals than in

monolinguals. This may be due to higher inductive reasoning in bilinguals. Inductive

reasoning is the logical processing in which a conclusion follows from consideration of

evidence. An improved of stimulus-stimulus response may be linked to better learning. As

touch on earlier in this paper, better learning may lead to better grades, which may provide

better higher education and a better chance to make more money. Thus, when success is

defined by the amount of money an individual makes, a bilingual may be more successful

than a monolingual.

Sabourin and Vinerte (2015) further examined the differences in the performance on

the Stroop between individuals that grew up bilingual and individuals that learned a second
HOW DOES BILINGUALISM AT A 17

language later in life. Although in our study we found that consistent lexical semantics (the

meaning of the word) and ink causes faster response time, we did not analyze the differences

between bilinguals and monolinguals. Sabourin and Vinerte (2015) look at the exact

differences in different types of bilinguals. They found that in a linguistic Stroop, there were

no differences between the two groups when the test was in one language. However, when the

languages in the task were mixed, the participants that grew up speaking two languages

responded faster than the participants that learn the second language later in life. Whether we

know a second language or not, and if we do, when we learned it, may affect our working

memory. The working memory manipulates information for complex task. Both studies on the

Stroop and bilingualism would indicate that the more languages we speak and the earlier we

learn them, the better our working memory would be. This may be because of a more

developed central executive in the brain, that can suppress irrelevant information. In the

Stroop task, this irrelevant information would be the written word, as the participants are

supposed to focus on the color of the ink. Again, this cognitive advantage of stimulus-

stimulus response may increase the chances of getting a better job, due to improved learning

through improved cognitive functions, which would than lead to more money, thus, success.

Word Superiority

Grossi et al. (2009) found that bilingual speakers are able to detect a word

superiority effect in their second language, however, not in their first language and that

monolinguals were able to find a word superiority effect in their first language. That is,

participants had better recognition for letters within words in contrast to isolated letters

or letters in non-word strings. Although Grossi et al. (2009) could not pose an

explanation for bilinguals not having a word superiority effect in their first language,

their study indicated that bilinguals are able to understand simple word lists and detect

words from non-words just as fast as monolinguals. The findings of word superiority
HOW DOES BILINGUALISM AT A 18

may partly be explained by the word frequency effect, the phenomenon that words can

be identified faster when they are more common. Monolinguals were not able to

produce a word superiority effect in the language they did not know, as they are not

frequently presented these words, however, they are in their first language. In our

study, we found that words were identified faster and more accurately, which provides

evidence for the word superiority effect. In our study, the majority of our participants

were monolinguals of the English language, therefore, our results remain consistent with

Grossi et al. (2009) as the task was completed in English. We, however, did not look for

a pseudoword effect. Grossi et al. (2009) found that monolinguals in their first language

and bilinguals in their first and second language had a pseudoword effect. They were

able to identify words that were pronounceable faster than words that were non-

pronounceable. As results remain the same for bilinguals and monolinguals, they

concluded that when word lists are utilized that are not too challenging, bilinguals will

be able to perform equally to monolinguals even when they complete the word

superiority task in a language that is not their first language.

Overall, from this we concluded that speaking languages may be beneficial as it

helps word recognition. Word recognition comes from the rule-based nature of

language, where there are principles specifying the permissible ways words can be

presented in a system of communication. This word recognition may improve lexical

competency, as key words can be identified faster and more accurate. In many jobs,

such as law practitioners, politicians and business men that have to read many contracts,

lexical competency is very important. Perhaps, future research can address whether

word recognition across languages actually improves literary competency. If so,

bilinguals would be likely to use these skills to get better jobs, thus, be more successful

as they could make more money.

HOW DOES BILINGUALISM AT A 19

Link Word

Byers-Heinlein and Werker (2009) found that bilingual and trilingual children had

higher word-disambiguation than monolinguals. In other words, monolinguals are more likely

to face lexical ambiguity, as they could not identify the meaning of a word because it was new

and there were many options possible. In our study, we found that creating an image to a

word will help us to remember it than not having an image. Rossman and Fink (2010) found

that multilingual individuals are more creative. From Byers-Heinlein and Werker (2010) and

Rossman and Fink (2010) we can suggest that multilinguals may be more creative and

therefore have different heuristics (“rule of thumbs” to solve problems) to learn new ideas,

things, or concepts. Therefore, we may conclude that being bilingual helps the cognitive

processes of learning and improving our semantic memory (the memory for facts). Another

idea may be that learning more languages increases implicit memory, that is, things we know

although we are not consciously aware of this knowledge. In Byers-Heinlein and Werker’s

(2009) study, they found that bilingual and trilingual children were able to identify familiar

objects even though they had not heard the word they were given that was referencing it.

Perhaps infants were not aware that they knew the words, but had previously heard them in

another, perhaps similar, language and could therefore recognize them. For example, an infant

may identify a comic that they have previously only knows as a book, because they had heard

the Spanish word cómico before. This is an example of coherence, that information from one

language is related to information of another language. Bylers-Heinlein and Werker’s (2009)

findings may also suggest that bilinguals are more likely to engage in restructuring (the

process of changing a problems’ representation) and therefore they are less ambiguous of new

words.

Future research may further address the link between bilingualism and creativity. In a

word task, being more creative may cause someone to be more disambiguate and therefore

helps them to identify images. Higher creativity may also help us to create images and
HOW DOES BILINGUALISM AT A 20

therefore remembering words and other ideas better. Future research should also focus on

long-term memory to see if the images that are created to remember words better can last for a

longer amount of time. An improved memory that may come from speaking more language

can help to improve academic performance. Better academic performance may increase the

chance for a better job. A better job can lead to a higher salary. Therefore, an individual

would be able to make more money over the lifetime and thus, be more successful.

Conclusion

In sum, to answer the question whether bilingualism is a predictor of future success

later in life, that is, making more money over a lifetime, more longitudinal studies on

monolinguals and bilinguals will need to be done. By doing this, one can study how speaking

multiple languages effected the steps that individuals took in order to get to a position where

they made more money. From our research, we found that bilinguals were able to respond

faster in the Stroop task and have less word ambiguity. We also found that bilinguals can

detect words in their second language just as well as in their first language. From our

research, we concluded that there is a bilingual advantage. Nevertheless, since the test we

looked at were immediate and did not provide long-term evaluations of bilinguals and

monolinguals, we cannot claim that bilingualism enables more success.

At this point, we can also note that success is hard to operationalize as generally

people have a different understanding of what success is. For the purpose of this paper, we

defined success in making more money. However, success could have been defined as

happiness, relationships or social ranking. The definition of success as a function of the

amount of money an individual makes is not universal, however, was one of many ways of

going about success for the means of this paper.

To conclude, whether bilingualism predicts the amount of success an individual has is

an open question that requires further research. Nevertheless, our findings suggest that

linguistic cognitive connections in the brain help to improve cognitive functioning in task
HOW DOES BILINGUALISM AT A 21

such as stimulus-stimulus response. Learning languages at a young age may be very

beneficial in many aspects. Having schools such as international schools that focus on

language can strengthen neuro-linguistic connections and therefore improve certain cognitive

functions, but furthermore, can also aide to make the world a more global community where

people are able to communicate through the means of speaking the same language.
HOW DOES BILINGUALISM AT A 22

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Appendix A

Stroop Task: Correlated Groups T-Test

Paired Samples Statistics

Mean N Std. Deviation Std. Error Mean
Pair 1 Same 962.7919 24 294.25782 60.06513
Different 1140.9896 24 354.71718 72.40634

Paired Samples Correlations

N Correlation Sig.
Pair 1 Same & Different 24 .934 .000

Paired Samples Test

Paired Differences
95% Confidence Interval of
Std. Std. Error the Difference Sig. (2-
Mean Deviation Mean Lower Upper t df tailed)
Pair Same - - 132.00727 26.94587 -233.93950 -122.45594 - 23 .000
1 Different 178.19772 6.613
HOW DOES BILINGUALISM AT A 26

Appendix B

Word Superiority: Two Correlated Groups T-Tests and Pearson

Correlations on Stimulus Type on RT and PC

Paired Samples Statistics

Mean N Std. Deviation Std. Error Mean
Pair WSE_PC_Word .9493 23 .06149 .01282
1 WSE_PC_Nonword .8786 23 .10277 .02143
Pair WSE_RT_Word 996.0192 23 363.60052 75.81595
2 WSE_RT_Nonword 1171.4018 23 558.49742 116.45476

Paired Samples Correlations

N Correlation Sig.
Pair WSE_PC_Word & WSE_PC_Nonword 23 .193 .378
1
Pair WSE_RT_Word & WSE_RT_Nonword 23 .695 .000
2

Paired Samples Test

Paired Differences
95% Confidence
Interval of the Sig. (2-
Std. Std. Error Difference t df tailed)
Mean Deviation Mean Lower Upper
Pair WSE_PC_Word - .07065 .10911 .02275 .02347 .11784 3.105 22 .005
1 WSE_PC_Nonword
Pair WSE_RT_Word - - 402.56312 83.94021 -349.46396 -1.30126 - 22 .048
2 WSE_RT_Nonword 175.38261 2.089

T-test: (3.1052) / (3.1052 + 23) = 9.64 / 32.64 = .30, a medium effect of word

stimulus (word or non-word) on proportion correct.

T-test: (-2.0892) / (-2.0892 + 23) = 4.36 /27.36 = 0.16, a medium effect of stimulus

type (word or non-word) on response type

Pearson correlation: (.6952) / (.6952 + 23) = 0.48 / 23.48 = 0.02, a small effect of

stimulus type (word or non-word) on response time.

HOW DOES BILINGUALISM AT A 27
HOW DOES BILINGUALISM AT A 28

Appendix C
Link Word: Correlated groups t-Test
Paired Samples Statistics
Std. Error
Mean N Std. Deviation Mean
Pair 1 LW_Image 14.545 22 5.9179 1.2617
LW_NoImage 12.955 22 6.3731 1.3588

Paired Samples Correlations

N Correlation Sig.
Pair 1 LW_Image & 22 .806 .000
LW_NoImage

r2: 0.8062 = 0.65, strong, positive relationship

Paired Samples Test
Paired Differences
95% Confidence
Std. Interval of the Sig. (2-
Std. Error Difference t df tailed)
Mean Deviation Mean Lower Upper
Pair LW_Image - 1.5909 3.8503 .8209 -.1162 3.2980 1.938 21 .066
1 LW_NoImage

r2: (1.9382)/(1.9382 + 21)  3.756/(3.756+21)  3.756/27.756 = 0.135, medium effect of

image condition on number correctly identified terms