This study examines the cognitive load of bilingual and monolingual individuals when learning novel Chinese words. The researcher hypothesizes that adding a character-based language will produce memory problems only for monolinguals due to the higher cognitive load. Participants include English-Italian/Spanish bilinguals and English monolinguals who complete a task memorizing Chinese words and definitions. The researcher expects bilinguals to correctly recall more words due to their integrated language processing system enabling them to better manage the cognitive load of learning character-based words. Results will be analyzed to see if bilinguals overcome this high load task, indicating bilingual memory facilitates novel language learning regardless of alphabetic or character-based scripts.

1. Christina Zhu

2. Outline
Introduction of topic
Bilingualism & Cognitive Load theory
Past research indications
Current research
Method
Participants
Materials
Procedures
Results
Discussion

3. 1 - Bilingualism
Bilinguals are people who are capable of
speaking, writing, and interpreting fluently in two
languages
My interest in this topic
Many people who moves to another country must learn
the language of that country. (Like me)
New York is a melting pot that holds so many different
ethnic groups, with many bilinguals. What are the basic
advantages?

4. 2 - Cognitive Load theory
States that our working memory holds limited capacity.
The memory capacity used depends on the difficulty of
that information. Consider…
Complexity of information:
High-Load task: tasks which are more complex, and
requires more memory capacity, which leaves very little
room for other memory processes
Low-Load task: easier tasks, which requires less memory
capacity, leaving memory with greater capacity

5. Past research Kaushanskaya and Marian (2009)
They used English-Native Monolinguals and English-
Spanish Bilinguals
Created novel words for both groups to learn
The novel words were given to participants by Auditory
presentations of the non-word phonologies (Hearing)
and Visual presentations of the non-word spellings
(reading) (I.e., TUF, IGUF, EFIT)

6. Kaushanskaya and Marian (2009) Cont’d
What they found:

Experience of bilinguals with Spanish
facilitated novel-word learning
From this experiment we can conclude that
bilinguals have an advantage in learning and
memorizing new language.

7. Past Research Findings

8. What led to my research…
Many past research like base article has
been done on Alphabet based novel
words.
But what about character based
languages?

9. Current research
addition of character-based language will
produce a problem in memory for only monolinguals, this
is because monolingual individuals will not be able to
manage such high cognitive load task as well as bilinguals

10. Current research Cont’d
IV: Language abilities of the bilinguals and monolinguals
DV: Amount of words & corresponding definitions
memorized
Participants: Local citizens of Binghamton.
Bilinguals & Monolinguals
Bilinguals:
English-Italian and English-Spanish speakers
Tested for their language ability prior to the experiment

11. Current research Cont’d
Materials:
Chinese Presentation Matching Survey (CPMS)
Word selection

12. Current research Cont’d
Procedures:
1) Instructed to pay full attention to the presentations on the
screen & memorize
2) Presentation includes Chinese word & definition
3) Presentation will appear for eight seconds
4) During visual display of stimuli, participants will also hear
the pronunciation of the Chinese word from the loud
speaker (Played twice)
5) Fill out CPMS survey form
6) Debriefed

13. Results
The results will be analyzed by a paired sample T-test
Proposed Results will show:
Bilinguals had higher portion of correct responses
than monolinguals
Past research supports:
Van Aasche, Duyck, Hartsuiker, and Diependaele
(2009) that bilinguals possess a highly integrated
processing system that reaches across
languages, this means that bilinguals have hold a
functioning system that helps them learn language
regardless of what the language is

14. Implications
What this means:
Indicates that bilinguals did overcome the high
cognitive load memory task, and bilinguals memory for
language is better even if the language is character-
based
Being bilingual gives the advantages to not only
memorize alphabet based languages better, but can
also overcome the complexity of character based
languages as well