Memory recognition for monolingual and bilingual speakers

Abstract: Forty-five students participated in this study examining bilinguals’ versus
monolinguals’ recognition of 20 concrete words. Participants were grouped
according to their self-reported monolingual or bilingual status. Both
groups participated in recognition tasks, wherein participants paired 20
Swedish words with their English counterparts. A pilot study was conducted
to generate level of concreteness and visual imagery to a second larger
study. The words were shown on a big screen at a rate of 3 s per word,
devoid of any interstimulus interval. As predicted, the bilingual group
had a significantly higher average recognition rate than the control group
(t(18) = 2.57, p < .01. the present results suggest that language
abilities may enhance participants’ memorial capabilities.