Syntax drives default language selection in bilingual connected speech production.

The present study investigated the role of syntactic processing in driving bilingual language selection. In two experiments, 120 English-dominant Spanish-English bilinguals read aloud 18 paragraphs with language switches. In Experiment 1a, each paragraph included eight switch words on function targets (four that repeated in every paragraph), and Experiment 1b was a replication with eight additional switches on content words in each paragraph.

Overcoming Barriers to Latino Participation in Alzheimer's Disease Research.

There is a critical need to increase Latino participation in research on Alzheimer's disease and related disorders (ADRD). Applying principles of community-based participatory research, we convened a community advisory board (CAB) to identify barriers and recommend strategies to increase participation of older Latinos in a longitudinal observational research study of ADRD at the Shiley-Marcos Alzheimer's Disease Research Center. Six major barriers were identified and programmatic changes to overcome them were implemented.

Sprinting in two languages: Picture naming performance of older Spanish-English bilinguals on the Multilingual Naming Test Sprint 2.0.

Objective: The present study examined how years of immersion in a nondominant language affect (a) the degree of bilingualism as measured by picture naming scores and (b) the bilingual disadvantage relative to monolinguals.

Method: Forty-two older Spanish-English bilinguals named pictures in an expanded rapid administration version of the Multilingual Naming Test (MINT Sprint 2.0) in both languages and completed a language history questionnaire.

Revisiting which language declines more in Spanish-English bilinguals with Alzheimer's disease: Longitudinal decline patterns on the multilingual naming test.

Theories of bilingual language production predict that bilinguals with Alzheimer's disease (AD) should exhibit one of two decline patterns. Either parallel decline of both languages (if decline reflects damage to semantic representations that are accessed by both languages), or asymmetrical decline, with greater decline of the nondominant language (if decline reflects reduced ability to resolve competition from the dominant language with disease progression). Only two previous studies examined decline longitudinally with one showing parallel, and the other asymmetrical, decline.

Is predicting during language processing worth it? Effects of cloze probability and semantic similarity on failed predictions.

Prediction during language processing has been hypothesized to lead to processing benefits. These possible benefits have led to several prominent theories that center around prediction as an essential mechanism in language processing. Such theories typically assume predicting is better than not predicting at all, but do not always account for the potential processing costs from failed predictions.

New insights on what leads bilinguals to be able to name some pictures only in their nondominant language: Immersion, dominance reversal, and balanced bilingualism.

Objective: The present study asked if bilinguals who are immersed in their nondominant language are more likely to know some words only in their nondominant language.

Method: The either-language scoring benefit (ELSB) reflects how many more points bilinguals get when credited for pictures named regardless of which language is used. We asked if the ELSB varies with self-rated proficiency level of the nondominant language in young English-dominant ( = 68) compared to Spanish-dominant ( = 33) bilinguals, and in older English-dominant ( = 36) compared to Spanish-dominant ( = 32) bilinguals.

Language switching and speaking a nondominant language challenge executive control: Preliminary data for novel behavioral markers of Alzheimer's risk in Spanish-English bilinguals.

Objective: The present study explored psycholinguistic analysis of spoken responses produced in a structured interview and cued linguistic and nonlinguistic task switching as possible novel markers of Alzheimer's disease (AD) risk in Spanish-English bilinguals.

Method: Nineteen Spanish-English bilinguals completed an Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI) in both languages, cued-switching tasks, and a battery of traditional neuropsychological tests (in a separate testing session). All were cognitively healthy at the time of testing, but eight were later diagnosed with AD (on average 4.

Different language control mechanisms in comprehension and production: Evidence from paragraph reading.

Chinese-English bilinguals read paragraphs with language switches using a rapid serial visual presentation paradigm silently while ERPs were measured (Experiment 1) or read them aloud (Experiment 2). Each paragraph was written in either Chinese or English with several function or content words switched to the other language. In Experiment 1, language switches elicited an early, long-lasting positivity when switching from the dominant language to the nondominant language, but when switching to the dominant language, the positivity started later, and was never larger than when switching to the nondominant language.

Competition accumulates in successive retrieval of proper names.

Proper names are especially prone to retrieval failures and tip-of-the-tongue states (TOTs)-a phenomenon wherein a person has a strong feeling of knowing a word but cannot retrieve it. Current research provides mixed evidence regarding whether related names facilitate or compete with target-name retrieval. We examined this question in two experiments using a novel paradigm where participants either read a prime name aloud (Experiment 1) or classified a written prime name as famous or non-famous (Experiment 2) prior to naming a celebrity picture.

The MINT Sprint 2.0: A picture naming test for detection of naming impairments in Alzheimer's disease and in preclinical AD.

Introduction: Evidence on the onset of naming deficits in Alzheimer's disease (AD) is mixed. Some studies showed an early decline, but others did not. The present study introduces evidence from a novel naming test.

Disruption of the serial position effect as an early marker of Alzheimer's disease in Spanish-English bilinguals.

Objectives: The present study examined if disruption of serial position effects in list recall could serve as an early marker of Alzheimer's disease (AD) in Spanish-English bilinguals.

Methods: We tested 20 participants initially diagnosed as cognitively normal or with mild cognitive impairment who declined and eventually received a diagnosis of AD (decliners), and 37 who remained cognitively stable (controls) over at least 2 years. Participants were tested on the Consortium to Establish a Registry for Alzheimer's Disease (CERAD) Word List Learning Test in English or Spanish as part of an annual neuropsychological evaluation.

Which language is more affected in bilinguals with Alzheimer's disease? Diagnostic sensitivity of the Multilingual Naming Test.

Objective: This study examined the joint consequences of bilingualism and Alzheimer's disease (AD) for picture naming ability to determine which language is more affected by AD and what scoring methods best distinguish patients from controls.

Method: Sixty-five Spanish-English bilinguals including 26 with dementia and 39 controls with equivalent age, education, and bilingual proficiency level, were tested on the Multilingual Naming Test (Gollan et al., 2012).

Inhibitory control of the dominant language: Reversed language dominance is the tip of the iceberg.

Theories of speech production have proposed that in contexts where multiple languages are produced, bilinguals inhibit the dominant language with the goal of making both languages equally accessible. This process often overshoots this goal, leading to a surprising pattern: better performance in the nondominant vs. dominant language, or effects.

Autocorrection if→of function words in reading aloud: A novel marker of Alzheimer's risk.

Objective: The present study investigated cognitive mechanisms underlying the ability to stop "autocorrect" errors elicited by unexpected words in a read-aloud task, and the utility of autocorrection for predicting Alzheimer's disease (AD) biomarkers.

Method: Cognitively normal participants (total = 85; = 64 with cerebrospinal fluid [CSF] biomarkers) read aloud six short paragraphs in which 10 critical target words were replaced with autocorrect targets, for example, . Autocorrect targets either replaced the most expected/ completion (i.

Language-switch Costs from Comprehension to Production Might Just Be Task-switch Costs.

Spanish-English bilinguals switched between naming pictures in one language and either reading-aloud or semantically classifying written words in both languages. When switching between reading-aloud and picture-naming, bilinguals exhibited no language switch costs in picture naming even though they produced overt language switches in speech. However, when switching between semantic classification and picture naming, bilinguals, especially unbalanced bilinguals, exhibited switch costs in the dominant language and switch facilitation in the nondominant language even though they never switched languages overtly.

The MINT Sprint: Exploring a Fast Administration Procedure with an Expanded Multilingual Naming Test.

Objectives: The present study examined if time-pressured administration of an expanded Multilingual Naming Test (MINT) would improve or compromise assessment of bilingual language proficiency and language dominance.

Methods: Eighty Spanish-English bilinguals viewed a grid with 80 MINT-Sprint pictures and were asked to name as many pictures as possible in 3 min in each language in counterbalanced order. An Oral Proficiency Interview rated by four native Spanish-English bilinguals provided independent assessment of proficiency level.

Older bilinguals reverse language dominance less than younger bilinguals: Evidence for the inhibitory deficit hypothesis.

Inhibitory control is thought to play a key role in how bilinguals switch languages and may decline in aging. We tested these hypotheses by examining age group differences in the reversed language dominance effect-a signature of inhibition of the dominant language that leads bilinguals to name pictures more slowly in the dominant than the nondominant language in mixed-language testing blocks. Twenty-five older and 48 younger Spanish-English bilinguals completed a cued language-switching task.

Order effects in bilingual recognition memory partially confirm predictions of the frequency-lag hypothesis.

The present study examined task order, language, and frequency effects on list memory to investigate how bilingualism affects recognition memory. In Experiment 1, 64 bilinguals completed a recognition memory task including intermixed high and medium frequency words in English and another list in Spanish. In Experiment 2, 64 bilinguals and 64 monolinguals studied lists with only high frequency English words and a separate list with only low frequency English words, in counterbalanced order followed by a recognition test.

Do All Switches Cost the Same? Reliability of Language Switching and Mixing Costs.

The current study examined the reliability and consistency of switching and mixing costs in the language and the color-shape tasks in three pre-existing data sets, to assess whether they are equally well suited for the study of individual differences. Specifically, we considered if the language task is as reliable as the color-shape task - an important question given the wide use of language switching tasks but little information available to address this question. Switching costs had low to moderate reliability and internal consistency, and these were similar for the language and the color-shape tasks.

What Cognates Reveal about Default Language Selection in Bilingual Sentence Production.

When producing connected speech, bilinguals often select a as the primary force driving the utterance. The present study investigated the cognitive mechanisms underlying default language selection. In three experiments, Spanish-English bilinguals named pictures out of context, or read aloud sentences with a single word replaced by a picture with a cognate (e.

Translation Distractors Facilitate Production in Single- and Mixed-Language Picture Naming.

In the picture-word interference (PWI) task, semantically related distractors slow production, while translation-equivalent distractors speed it, possibly implying a language-specific bilingual production system (Costa, Miozzo & Caramazza, 1999). However, in most previous PWI studies bilinguals responded in just one language, an artificial task restriction. We investigated translation facilitation effects in PWI with language switching.

Native Spanish-speaker's test performance and the effects of Spanish-English bilingualism: results from the neuropsychological norms for the U.S.-Mexico Border Region in Spanish (NP-NUMBRS) project.

We aimed to investigate whether or not demographically-corrected test scores derived from the Neuropsychological Norms for the U.S.-Mexico Border Region in Spanish (NP-NUMBRS) would be less accurate if applied to Spanish-speakers with various degrees of English fluency.

Which bilinguals reverse language dominance and why?

When naming pictures in mixed-language blocks, bilinguals sometimes exhibit reversed language dominance effects. These have been attributed to proactive inhibitory control of the dominant language, or adaptation of language-specific selection thresholds. Even though reversed dominance arguably provides the most striking evidence of inhibition, few studies have focused on when and why this effect occurs.

Failure to stop autocorrect errors in reading aloud increases in aging especially with a positive biomarker for Alzheimer's disease.

The present study examined the effects of aging and CSF biomarkers of Alzheimer's disease (AD) on the ability to control production of unexpected words in connected speech elicited by reading aloud. Fifty-two cognitively healthy participants aged 66-86 read aloud 6 paragraphs with 10 malapropisms including 5 on content words (e.g.