Consequences of Bilingual Language Coactivation for Higher Order Cognition

Abstract

Hearing a single word can initiate a sequence of activation that spreads from the representation of the word (e.g., “candy”) to words that share auditory and visual form (e.g., “candle”) and the concepts those words reference (e.g., the idea of a “candle”). In bilinguals, this coactivation spreads both within and across languages to words that share form or meaning in either or both languages. This parallel activation across two languages has cascading effects on higher order cognitive functions such as attention (e.g., what people focus on in a visual scene), memory (e.g., what people remember seeing), and semantic organization (e.g., how concepts are represented and grouped on the basis of their meanings). Here, we consider how the consequences of language coactivation extend beyond the linguistic domain to impact the broader cognitive system and conclude that the interactivity of languages in the bilingual mind fundamentally transforms mental operations.