Bilingualism is beneficial in development of cognitive function in children. The benefits are not limited to improvements in social communication skills, sensitivity to language structures, details, grammar, conflict solving, creativity, analogical reasoning, classification, cognitive flexibility, inhibition and dementia prevention. However, bilingualism effect on cognitive processing of syntactic and semantic violations is not well understood yet. This study aimed to determine the effect of bilingualism on event related potentials (ERP) during semantic and syntactic violation tasks in children and adolescents.

1. International Conference on Auditory Cortex. 2017.09.10-15. Banff, Canada
THE EFFECT OF BILINGUALISM ON SYNTACTIC AND SEMANTIC RECOGNITION IN
CHILDREN
Delgertsetseg. Ch, Nyamsuren. D and Chuluundorj. B
Brain Research Laboratory, University of the Humanities, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia
ABSTRACT
Introduction:
Bilingualism is beneficial in development of cognitive function in children. The benefits are not limited to
improvements in social communication skills, sensitivity to language structures, details, grammar, conflict
solving, creativity, analogical reasoning, classification, cognitive flexibility, inhibition and dementia prevention.
However, bilingualism effect on cognitive processing of syntactic and semantic violations is not well understood
yet. This study aimed to determine the effect of bilingualism on event related potentials (ERP) during semantic
and syntactic violation tasks in children and adolescents.
Methods:
76 Mongolian native speakers were randomly selected from Ulaanbaatar city, Mongolia. From them, 36 subjects
were bilinguals and 40 were monolinguals (control group), 58% female and 42% male, aged 3-21. Half of the
subjects had semantic tasks and half - syntactic. Among 36 bilinguals, 26 were Mongolian-English and 10 were
Mongolian-Russian bilinguals. Visual and auditory stimuli were presented to the subjects in pictures, followed by
Mongolian sentences one word per time. Auditory stimuli (22 Hz, 60 dB) were recorded in acoustically shielded
room by female native speaker 1 word every 2 seconds. Half of the sentences had syntactically or semantically
incongruent words and half – congruent words. In semantic tasks the target words were either nouns, verbs or
adjectives. The subjects had 64 trials, 3 seconds per one word stimulus. Brain electric waves were measured
during the task presentations by using WEEG32 recording Laxtha Inc., Korea) and 21 electrode caps (Electro-cap
Inc., USA). The following programs were used for recording and analyzing of the waves: Telescan (Laxtha Inc.,
Korea), Matlab 2017 (Mathworks Inc., USA), ICA on EEGlab (UCSD, USA), ERPlab (Github Inc., USA),
GraphPad Prism (GraphPad software Inc., USA).
Results :
In experiments with semantic violation tasks, N400, P300 and P600 are known to be important ERP peaks in
semantic tasks and averages of their amplitude and latency were assessed after an onset of stimuli within 350-
450, 250-350 and 500-800 millisecond (ms) intervals accordingly. This study showed that mono- and bilinguals
had significant differences in the electrophysiological analysis of these peaks. Bilingual brain spends significantly
lower efforts for processing of semantically incongruent words than monolinguals, but with a same processing
speed in terms of N400, P300 and P600. Semantically incongruent words activate a dominant brain hemisphere
with differences between mono- and bilinguals. While N400, P300 and P600 were mainly elicited in parietal and
occipital sites in monolinguals, in bilinguals they had frontal and parietal involvement. Age of bilinguals and
initiation period of their second language study (L2 onset) significantly affected latency, but not the location and
power of brain activation. For instance, N400 latency was significantly lower when bilinguals initiated L2 earlier
in life well before age 9. Length of L2 exposure (L2 duration) affected only P300 latency and lower latency was
associated with longer L2 duration, i.e. 9-13 years. Additionally L2 types (English and Russian) did not affect the
ERP results in semantic tasks. In experiments with syntactic violation tasks, the ERP peaks such as ELAN, N400
and P600 are known to be elicited during syntactic tasks and were assessed after the onset of stimuli in the range
of 150-250, 350-450 and 500-800 ms accordingly. Similarly to the semantic tasks, in syntactic tasks peak
amplitudes were also significantly lower in bilinguals than in monolinguals. Age of the subjects and L2 onset
period, but not L2 duration and type, significantly affected expression of ELAN, N400 and P600. Thus, amplitude
of peak effects was significantly lower in bilinguals than in monolinguals at their ages 3-6 especially in frontal
positions.
Conclusion:
Bilingualism is beneficial in cognitive processing of semantic and syntactic tasks in native language. Main
benefits can be observed when bilinguals are exposed to their second language earlier in their lives.

2. 3-6 6-12 12-15 15-18 18-21
-20
-10
0
Age (years)
Power(incon-condifference,ìV)
ELAN F8
Monolinguals
Bilinguals
*
**
*
Student’s t-test was used to compare language groups; ANOVA was used to compare age groups.
*P<0.05; **P<0.005; ***P<0.001; ****P<0.0001
*
*
3-6 6-12 12-15 15-18 18-21
-30
-20
-10
0
Age (years)
Power(incon-condifference,ìV)
ELAN F7
Monolinguals
Bilinguals
Student’s t-test was used to compare language groups; ANOVA was used to compare age groups.
*P<0.05; **P<0.005; ***P<0.001; ****P<0.0001
**
**
*
***
**
**
BilingualsMonolinguals
Delgertsetseg Chuluundorj, Nyamsuren Dorjpalam and Chuluundorj Begz
Brain Research Laboratory, University of the Humanities, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia
Sponsors:
International Conference on Auditory Cortex. 2017.09.10-15. Banff, Canada
THE EFFECT OF BILINGUALISM ON SYNTACTIC AND SEMANTIC RECOGNITION IN CHILDREN
INTRODUCTION
Bilingualism is beneficial in development of cognitive function in children. The benefits are not limited to improvements in social
communication skills, sensitivity to language structures, details, grammar, conflict solving, creativity, analogical reasoning,
classification, cognitive flexibility, inhibition and dementia prevention. However, bilingualism effect on cognitive processing of
syntactic and semantic violations is not well understood yet.
AIM
To determine the effect of bilingualism on event related potentials (ERP) during semantic and syntactic violation tasks in children
and adolescents.
METHODS
76 Mongolian native speakers were randomly selected from Ulaanbaatar city, Mongolia. From them, 36 subjects were bilinguals
and 40 were monolinguals (control group), 58% female and 42% male, aged 3-21. Half of the subjects had semantic tasks and half -
syntactic. Among 36 bilinguals, 26 were Mongolian-English and 10 were Mongolian-Russian bilinguals.
Visual and auditory stimuli were presented to the subjects in pictures, followed by Mongolian sentences one word per time.
Auditory stimuli (22 Hz, 60 dB) were recorded in acoustically shielded room by female native speaker 1 word every 2 seconds. Half
of the sentences had syntactically or semantically incongruent words and half – congruent words. In semantic tasks the target
words were either nouns, verbs or adjectives. The subjects had 64 trials, 3 seconds per one word stimulus. Brain electric waves
were measured during the task presentations by using WEEG32 recording Laxtha Inc., Korea) and 21 electrode caps (Electro-cap
Inc., USA) (Figure 1). The following programs were used for recording and analyzing of the waves: Telescan (Laxtha Inc., Korea),
Matlab 2017 (Mathworks Inc., USA), ICA on EEGlab (UCSD, USA), ERPlab (Github Inc., USA), GraphPad Prism (GraphPad software
Inc., USA).
Figure 1. A schematic picture of 21 electrode placement sites on the scalp according
to 10-20 international system.
RESULTS
Study 1. Semantic violation tasks
N400, P300 and P600 are known to be important ERP peaks in semantic tasks and averages of their amplitude and latency were
assessed after an onset of stimuli within 350-450, 250-350 and 500-800 millisecond (ms) intervals accordingly (Figure 2). This
study showed that mono- and bilinguals had significant differences in the electrophysiological analysis of these peaks. Bilingual
brain spends significantly lower efforts for processing of semantically incongruent words than monolinguals, but with a same
processing speed in terms of N400, P300 and P600 (Figures 3 and 4).
a) b)
Figure 2. Wave plots show average of ERP waves in monolinguals and bilinguals during semantic tasks. The ERPs were recorded
during semantic tasks with congruent sentences and incongruent nouns, verbs and adjectives combined in: a) monolinguals,
b) bilinguals. X axis shows time after word onset in milliseconds. Y axis shows amplitude in microvolts.
N400 P300 P600
Figure 3. Peak amplitudes of ERP effects in semantically incongruent tasks in bilinguals and monolinguals (ms). Mann-Whitney
two-tailed t test. ****P<0.0001.
N400 P300 P600
Figure 4. Peak latencies of ERP effects in semantically incongruent tasks in bilinguals and monolinguals (ms).
Semantically incongruent words activate a dominant brain hemisphere with differences between mono- and bilinguals. While
N400, P300 and P600 were mainly elicited in parietal and occipital sites in monolinguals, in bilinguals they had frontal and parietal
involvement (Figure 5). Age of bilinguals (Figure 6a) and initiation period of their second language study (L2 onset) significantly
affected latency, but not the location and power of brain activation. For instance, N400 latency was significantly lower when
bilinguals initiated L2 earlier in life well before age 9 (Figure 6b). Length of L2 exposure (L2 duration) affected only P300 latency
and lower latency was associated with longer L2 duration, i.e. 9-13 years. Additionally L2 types (English and Russian) did not affect
the ERP results in semantic tasks (data not shown).
N400 P300 P600 a) N400 P300 P600
b) N400 P300 P600
Figure 5. Topoplots showing N400,
P300 and P600 effects in incongruent
semantics tasks. Shown are averages of Figure 6. Peak latencies (ms) of N400, P300 and P600 in different age groups and
peaks in the range of 350-450, 250-350 L2 onset ages in monolinguals (grey color) and bilinguals (black color). One way
and 500-800 ms. ANOVA with Fisher’s LSD test. *P<0.05, **P<0.01.
Study 2. Syntactic violation tasks
The ERP peaks such as ELAN, N400 and P600 are known to be elicited during syntactic tasks and were assessed after the onset of
stimuli in the range of 150-250, 350-450 and 500-800 ms accordingly (Figure 7). Similarly to the semantic tasks, in syntactic tasks
peak amplitudes were also significantly lower in bilinguals than in monolinguals (data not shown). Age of the subjects and L2
onset period, but not L2 duration and type, significantly affected expression of ELAN, N400 and P600. Thus, amplitude of peak
effects was significantly lower in bilinguals than in monolinguals at their ages 3-6 especially in frontal positions (Figure 8).
a) b)
Figure 7. Wave plots show average of ERP waves in monolinguals and bilinguals during syntactic tasks with congruent or
incongruent words in: a) monolinguals, b) bilinguals. X axis shows time in milliseconds. Y axis shows amplitude in microvolts.
ELAN N400 P600
a)
b)
Figure 8. Peak amplitudes of ERP effects in syntactically incongruent tasks in bilinguals and monolinguals in different age groups
(µV): a) in left, b) in right frontal electrode sites. One way ANOVA was used. *P<0.05’ **P<0.01, ***P<0.001, ****P<0.0001.
CONCLUSION
Bilingualism is beneficial in cognitive processing of semantic and syntactic tasks in native language. Main benefits can be
observed when bilinguals are exposed to their second language earlier in their lives.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We would like to acknowledge the Mongolian Foundation for Science and Technology and University of the Humanities for
sponsoring this work, E. Khongorjin for her technical assistance and all our volunteers and their families for time and support.