Verbal Fluency and Repetition Skills in Healthy Older Spanish-English Bilinguals

“Performance on these tasks reveals systematic deficits for bilingual participants, particularly in semantic fluency conditions [33–37], even if responses can be provided in either language [38].”

“For example, research investigating linguistic performance has reported vocabulary deficits for fluently bilingual children (Oller & Eilers, 2002), increased frequency of tip-of-the-tongue states in adults (Gollan & Silverberg, 2001), longer naming times for bilingual adults (Gollan, Montoya, Fennema-Notestine, & Morr…”

“One solution to this problem, however, might be to introduce stimuli that could reflexively activate responses [i.e., arrows ( Ristic & Kingstone, 2006; Ristic, Friesen, & Kingstone, 2002) in, e.g., the spatial Stroop task (Bialystok, 2006)].”

“…2001, but see Gollan & Brown, 2006), have reduced category fluency (Gollan, Montoya, & Werner, 2002; Portocarrero, Burright, & Donovick, 2007; Rosselli et al., 2000), name pictures more slowly (Gollan, Montoya, Fennema-Notestine, & Morris, 2005), and name fewer pictures correctly on…”

“The typical outcome of studies comparing monolingual and bilingual adults performing verbal fluency tasks is for bilinguals to generate fewer words than monolinguals, with greater disparity between groups in the category fluency task (Bialystok et al., 2008a; Gollan, Montoya, & Werner, 2002; Portocarrero et al., 2007;…”

“Similarly, in a study of healthy older adults, Spanish–English bilinguals produced fewer correct responses, relative to monolinguals, in 2 semantic, but not in 2 letter, categories that were tested (only 4 categories total were tested in this study; Rosselli et al., 2000 ).”

“…in this context, the BNT remains commonly used both in clinical settings and in experimental research with bilinguals (e.g., Gollan et al., 2010; Rosselli et al., 2000; Silverberg & Samuel, 2004), thus it is important to qualify interpretation of scores with a detailed understanding…”

“In a verbal fluency task (generation of as many exemplars as possible of a given category), monolinguals outperformed bilinguals (at least clearly in the semantic categories), both when college-aged participants (Gollan, Montoya, & Werner, 2002) and healthy older adults (Rosselli et al., 2000) were tested.”

“As stated earlier, Rosselli et al. (2000) discussed the hypothesis that cross-language interference is greater when retrieving concrete words versus non-concrete words.”

“…relative to monolinguals on a number of production tasks, including reduced category fluency (see e.g., Gollan, Montoya, & Werner, 2002; Rosselli et al., 2000), higher rates of tip-of-the-tongue state retrieval failures (see e.g., Gollan & Silverberg, 2001), slower picture-naming times…”

“Bilinguals produced significantly fewer correct responses than monolinguals (replicating prior work, e.g., Gollan et al. 2002; Rosselli et al., 2000) [F(1,52) = 4.”

“…young adults, the usual bilingual disadvantage on the category fluency task (Gollan, Montoya, & Werner, 2002; Portocarrero, Burright, & Donovick, 2007; Rosselli et al., 2000) disappeared when participants were equated for score on a receptive vocabulary test (Bialystok, Craik, & Luk, in press).”

“However, bilingualism also entails some processing costs, including reduced verbal fluency scores (Gollan et al., 2002; Rosselli et al., 2000) and lower BNT scores (Roberts et al.”

“, animals, monolinguals often produce more words than bilinguals regardless of whether bilinguals produce words in their first or second language (Gollan, Montoya, & Werner, 2002; Rosselli et al., 2000).”

“Young and older bilinguals are also disadvantaged in verbal fluency tests, with a greater bilingual disadvantage on semantic than on letter fluency (e.g., Gollan et al. 2002; Rosselli et al. 2000).”

“This result accords with the performance of monolingual English speakers and nonnative speakers of English with a range of L1 backgrounds (Rosselli et al. 2000; Gollan et al. 2002; Portocarrero et al. 2007; Bialystok et al. 2008).”

“In addition, bilinguals show deficits in lexical retrieval when performing a verbal fluency task and experience more interference in lexical decision tasks (Gollan, Montoya, FennemaNotestine, & Morris, 2005; Ransdell & Fischler, 1987; Rosselli et al., 2000).”

“Mean number of correct responses for older bilinguals and monolinguals in both category- and letter-fluency tasks (from Rosselli et al., 2000). listening) independent of age-of-acquisition (AoA).”

“Monolingual participants then completed the English BNT; half of the bilingual participants proceeded with the English BNT and half with the Spanish BNT. Bilingual participants concluded the testing session with the remaining version of the BNT (English or Spanish).”

“For instance, when speaking in L1, bilinguals are slower and produce fewer words than monolinguals (Gollan, Montoya, Fennema-Notestine, & Morris, 2005; Gollan, Montoya, Cera, & Sandoval, 2008; Gollan et al., 2011; Ivanova & Costa, 2008; Portocarrero, Burright, & Donovick, 2007; Rosselli et al., 2000; Sadat, Martin, Al…”

“On the one hand, this outcome is consistent with previous observations that monolinguals outperform bilinguals in verbal fluency tasks (Rosselli et al., 2000; Gollan et al., 2002).”

“For example, bilinguals perform more poorly than monolinguals on the semantic and letter fluency tasks (Gollan, Montoya, & Werner, 2002; Rosselli et al., 2000) and the Boston naming task (Roberts, Garcia, Desrochers, & Hernandez, 2002) and experience more tip-of-the tongue episodes (Gollan &…”

“This article reports a secondary analysis of previously presented data (Rosselli et al., 2000), which were collected to study the impact of bilingualism on verbal fluency (semantic and phonologic) and repetition tests in a bilingual and monolingual elderly sample.”

“The interview consisted of a demographic history and a specific questionnaire assessing language proficiency (Rosselli et al., 2000).”

“Other researchers, however, did not find significant differences between monolinguals and bilinguals (Bialystok, Craik, & Luk, 2008; Friesen, Luo, Luk, & Bialystok, 2014; Luo, Luk, & Bialystok, 2010) or between the bilinguals’ languages (Roberts & Dorze, 1997; Rosselli et al., 2000).”

“Although, others have found a disadvantage for bilinguals on category fluency (Rosselli et al., 2000; Gollan et al., 2002), likely due to the reliance of the category fluency task on linguistic representations.”

“However, studies have shown that bilinguals perform poorly on tasks involving lexical access (Gollan, Montoya, & Werner, 2002; Ransdell & Fischler, 1989; Rosselli et al., 2000), and based on the current study, it appears that there may also be a bilingual disadvantage for memory retrieval – in the case of verbal mater…”

“The ENI has been widely used in Mexico, the rest of Latin America, as well as with Hispanic children in the United States (17).”

“Key words: bilingual advantage, bimodal bilingual, executive control, unimodal bilingual, voxel-based morphometry”

“13 Combining verbal tasks with inhibitory control, however, results in a net positive effect of bilingualism.”

“Further, the reduced scores on letter and category fluency tests were found for both college-age bilinguals and older bilingual adults (Gollan et al., 2002; Rosselli et al., 2000).”

“Performance on this condition is an index of vocabulary size and semantic structure, and consistent with receptive vocabulary scores, bilinguals generally produce fewer words than monolinguals (Portocarrero et al. 2007; Gollan et al. 2002; Rosselli et al. 2000).”

“Behavioral studies of verbal fluency have shown that bilinguals generally produce fewer words than monolinguals (Bialystok, Craik, & Luk, 2008; Gollan, Montoya, & Werner, 2002; Rosselli et al., 2000).”

“Bilinguals show poorer performance than monolinguals on picture naming (for adults: Gollan, Montoya, Fennema-Notestine & Morris, 2005; Gollan, Montoya, Cera & Sandoval, 2008; Gollan, Slattery, Goldenberg, van Assche, Duyck & Rayner, 2011; Ivanova & Costa, 2008; for children: Poarch & Van Hell, 2012a) and verbal fluenc…”

“Similarly, Rosselli et al. (Rosselli, Ardila, Araujo, Weekes, Caracciolo, Padilla & Ostrosky Solís, 2000) examined monolingual Spanish and English speakers and bilingual Spanish–English speakers who performed phonemic and semantic verbal fluency tasks.”

“Indeed, many studies on second-language learning show that performance on verbal fluency is a reliable measure of secondlanguage ability (see, among others, Andreou, Andreou, & Vlachos, 2005; Rosselli et al., 2000; Schmidt, 1992).”

“A decreased performance has been usually reported (Gollan, Montoya, & Werner, 2002; Portocarrero, Burright, & Donovick, 2007; Rosselli et al., 2000, 2002).”

“…(who acquire their second language/L2 after acquiring their native language/L1), tested in their second language, score lower on vocabulary measures than their monolingual peers (e.g., Kohnert, Hernandez, & Bates, 1998; Roberts, Garcia, Desrochers, & Hernandez, 2002; Rosselli et al., 2000).”

“, 2002), between bilingual English-Spanish-speakers (Bethlehem, de Picciotto, & Watt, 2003; de Picciotto & Friedland, 2001; Rosselli et al., 2000), as well as on different cultures (Bradley, Torner, Fisher, & Aharon-Peretz, 2001; González, Mungas and Haan, 2005; Kempler, Teng, Dick, Taussig, & Davis, 1998; Ramirez et…”

“The authors support this claim by the fact that bilinguals show poorer performance on semantic fluency tasks whereas sometimes no difference between bilinguals and monolinguals is found on letter fluency tasks (Gollan et al., 2002; Rosselli et al., 2000; however, see Sandoval et al., 2010).”

“, 1996); (2) for Spanish/English speakers (Kohnert et al., 1998; Rosselli et al., 2000) comparing Spanish and English performance; and (3) for Spanish/English speakers, examining English performance alone (Roberts et al.”

“Rosselli et al.21 analyzed the performance of Spanish-English bilinguals on the Stroop Test.”

“To date, only a few studies have focused on processes of language acquisition and attrition in older bilinguals (Clyne, 1977; De Bot & Toke, 1986; Obler et al., 1986; Rosselli et al., 2000).”

“The children generated words orally, and their responses were recorded on tape, and also written down by the experimenters on special forms.”

“The bilingual participants also completed a five-point rating scale on how well they understood and spoke each of their two languages (Rosselli et al., 2000; Rosselli et al., 2002).”

“…demonstrate delays and more errors, as compared to monolinguals, in verbal fluency tasks (Bialystok et al., 2008; Gollan, Montoya, & Werner, 2002; Rosselli et al., 2000), as well as in picture naming tasks (Gollan, Montoya, Fennema-Notestine, & Morris, 2005; Kaplan, Goodglass, & Weintraub, 1983;…”

“Bilingual adult speakers show disadvantages in various speech production laboratory tasks (Bialystok, Craik, & Luk, 2008; Gollan & Silverberg, 2001; Gollan & Acenas, 2004; Gollan, Montoya, & Werner, 2002; Portocarrero et al., 2007; Rosselli et al., 2000; Rosselli & Ardila, 2002).”

“For instance, bilingual Spanish-English individuals performed as well as monolinguistic English speakers on verbal fluency and repetition tests administered in English (Rosselli et al., 2000).”

“Several studies used letter and semantic verbal fluency tasks to measure proficiency (Miranda et al., 2016; Rosselli et al., 2000; Zirnstein et al., 2018), and some have suggested that semantic fluency is especially “culturally fair” (Ardila & Moreno, 2001; Pekkala et al., 2009), while letter…”

“category performance are consistent with previous findings (e.g. Rosselli & Ardila, 2002; Rosselli et al., 2000; Sandoval et al., 2010).”

“Older Spanish/English bilinguals perform worse than monolinguals on semantic fluency, but not on letter fluency, in both the preferred and nonpreferred language.(9) Similarly, using a younger sample of Spanish/English bilinguals, Gollan, Montoya, and Werner found that although the bilinguals’ performance tended to be…”

“Performance on tests of sentence recall has been shown to be sensitive to age of acquisition effects in both L1 and L2 learners (French & O’Brien, 2008; Jessop, Suzuki & Tomita, 2007; Mayberry & Fisher, 1989; Rosselli et al., 2000; Vinther, 2002), and it is, in part, for this reason that we are hypothesizing that it i…”

“, 2002) and (healthy) older adults (Rosselli et al., 2000).”

“Research has shown that phonological and action fluency require executive functioning and the activation of areas within the frontal lobe, while semantic fluency taps into lexical access and vocabulary, and requires participation of the temporal lobe (Luo, Luk, & Bialystok, 2010; Rosselli et al., 2000).”

“Moreover, L2 AoA can modulate lexical access as bilinguals with earlier L2 learning onset outperform bilinguals with later L2 AoA in word retrieval tasks (Bethlehem, de Picciotto & Watt, 2003; Poreh & Schweiger, 2002; Rosselli et al., 2000).”

“…of multi/bilingualism have been shown: bilinguals exhibit an advantage to executive functions with a concomitant disadvantage to fluency and naming (Bialystok, 2010; Bialystok, Craik, & Ryan, 2006; Gollan, Montoya, Fennema-Notestine, & Morris, 2005; Rosselli et al., 2000; Singh & Mishra, 2013).”

“Otros estudios se han dirigido a comparar el desempeño entre hispanos y no hispanos [34], entre sujetos bilingües inglésespañol [35-37], así como entre diferentes culturas [38-41].”

“In letter fluency, some studies report lower performance in bilinguals than monolinguals (Bialystok et al., 2008; Gollan et al., 2002), while others report similar performance in the two language groups (Portocarrero et al., 2007; Rosselli et al., 2000).”

“Although there are verbal fluency tests available for Spanish-speakers in other countries (Butman, Allegri, Harris, & Drake, 2000; Rosselli et al., 2000) and Latinos of Caribbean ancestry (Jacobs, Sano, Albert, & Schofield, 1997), there are few semantic verbal fluency tests with appropriate normative data for older Me…”

“…the MMSE, MoCA, and ACE-III, generally find comparable overall diagnostic accuracy for dementia (Cheung et al., 2015; Matias-Guiu et al., 2017), but less cultural and educational test bias on the RUDAS (Rosselli et al., 2000; Iype et al., 2006; Nielsen et al., 2013; Mateos-Alvarez et al., 2017).”