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A growing consensus sees the bilingual lexicon as an integrated, nonselective system. However, the way bilingual experience shapes the architecture and functioning of the lexicon is not well understood. This study investigates bilingual lexical-semantic representation and processing employing written translation priming. We focus on the role of active exposure to and use of the second language (L2)--primarily operationalized as immersion. We tested 200 highly proficient Spanish--English bilinguals in two groups differing in their societal language (immersed vs. nonimmersed) and amount of L2 use. L2 proficiency was controlled across participants, allowing us to disentangle its effects from those of L2 use. Overall, however, the immersion's impact on our data was minimal. This suggests a ceiling effect for the influence of active L2 use on bilingual lexical functioning when L2 development is maximal. The present data provide relevant insights into the nature of the bilingual lexicon, informing developmental models.

Introduction: The assessment of student motivation can be a powerful tool for understanding the factors that can influence the school environment, where students, families, teachers, psychologists or administration can develop interventions related to the improvement of learning through the motivational style based on the Self-Determination Theory (SDT). The present study aims to offer a Spanish version of the Academic Self-Regulation Questionnaire (SRQA), one of the most widely used instruments worldwide to measure academic motivation. Method: A confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was conducted on a sample of 1343 elementary school students aged 8 to 13 years. To analyse the divergent validity, a correlation analysis was carried out between the four-factor model of the SRQ-A and to analyse its reliability, Cronbach's alpha and McDonald's omega were used. Also, its invariance was tested taking gender and grade as reference. Finally, in order to analyse its convergent validity, a Pearson correlation of the motivational regulatory styles with the level of satisfaction of basic psychological needs was carried out. Results: A good convergent and discriminant validity of the reduced Spanish version of the SRQ-A was shown, as a positive correlation was observed between the most self-determined styles and the level of satisfaction of autonomy, competence and relatedness needs. A multiple-group CFA showed that the structure of the four-factor model did not vary according to gender or grade level. Discussion or Conclusion: The Spanish version of the SRQ-A demonstrates that it is a reliable instrument for measuring academic motivation described in the TAD in elementary school students.

In terms of critical skills for academic achievement, the literature has revealed that the development of executive functions (EF) plays a key role. Although numerous researchers have aimed to improve EF through computerized cognitive training interventions, the evidence of the effect derived from these interventions remains ambiguous. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of a computerized game-based training program on EF and its impact on academic performance in 713 Spanish Primary School students (M = 10.2 years old, 51.3% girls). The EF training was carried out in 8 weeks, 3 sessions of 15-20 minutes each week, measuring students' EF and obtaining information on academic performance. The results showed an improvement within the training group in the questionnaires exploring inhibition and working memory, as well as in academic performance, compared to the control group. In contrast, no significant intergroup differences were observed in the inhibition tasks.

Numerous studies explore the effect of cognitive stimulation programs on reading skills in children, with mixed results. However, few studies question the impact of these interventions at the beginning of primary school, during the crucial period when formal reading acquisition is being consolidated. This research is the only study in the last ten years addressing the far transfer effects on letter recognition and word and pseudoword reading, from a gamified cognitive stimulation program. The main objective of this pilot study is to investigate the impact of gamified executive functions training on letter identification, and on word and pseudoword reading, in typically developing 6-year-old children. Cognitive training was conducted using the CogniFit platform in 12 children, comparing their performance with a comparison group of 28 children of the same age and similar socioeconomic status. This training protocol lasted for 8 weeks, averaging 19 minutes of training per week. Results indicated that the experimental group showed higher reading speed in letter recognition than the comparison group. However, no significant effect was found in the rest of the reading skills. These promising findings suggest that additional research is needed to clarify the mixed results reported in the current scientific literature regarding the modulation of executive functions and their impact on untrained skills such as reading abilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prior research has found reduced emotionality with foreign language use, especially with single words, but what happens if emotionality is conveyed throughout a longer text? Does emotionality affect how well we remember and associate information, that is, content learning? We played participants descriptions of two invented countries and tested how well they remembered facts about these countries. Each participant listened to one positive and one neutral description, which was read either in their native language (Spanish) or in their foreign language (English). Participants remembered facts they heard in positive semantic contexts better than those learned in neutral semantic contexts and did better in their native than their foreign language. Importantly, there was no interaction between language and emotionality, suggesting that the previously reported decrease in emotionality in a foreign language might not extend to all areas of foreign language use.

Participants learned the meaning of novel objects by listening to two complementary definitions while watching videos of the new object, in a single-language context (all in Spanish) or a mixed-language context (one definition in Basque, one in Spanish). Then, participants were asked to assess the degree of functional relatedness between novel and familiar objects in two conditions: identical (both definitions overlap) or related (single definition overlap). Relatedness ratings differed significantly between conditions, but they were highly similar across language contexts. Furthermore, items in the identical condition elicited a P300-like event-related potential component, while related items elicited a wave of lesser amplitude. Critically, the amplitude differences between conditions did not differ between language contexts. No interaction was found with proficiency level across participants. In line with previous findings, we show no measurable impact of mixing languages during the establishment of a link between novel objects and existing conceptual representations in bilinguals.

Bilinguals make decisions differently across languages likely due to reduced affect in the foreign language, but very little is known about language use in relation to deception. Here, we tested whether late Chinese-English bilinguals prefer to lie in the foreign language when betting against a virtual opponent. In each trial, participants freely announced bets in Chinese or English depending on whether they had drawn a coin or not. Results showed that bilinguals preferred using their native language, Chinese, over their foreign language, English, when being truthful-namely, announcing a coin when they had one. Even though participants did not choose English more to lie than to tell the truth, our results can be interpreted as a tendency to lie more in English when their behavior in the truth condition is considered the baseline. Participants also switched between languages more often after telling the truth than lying, and after telling the truth they switched more to Chinese. These results provide the first empirical evidence for strategic language use in bilinguals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose and test a theoretical perspective in which a universal hallmark of successful literacy acquisition is the convergence of the speech and orthographic processing systems onto a common network of neural structures, regardless of how spoken words are represented orthographically in a writing system. During functional MRI, skilled adult readers of four distinct and highly contrasting languages, Spanish, English, Hebrew, and Chinese, performed an identical semantic categorization task to spoken and written words. Results from three complementary analytic approaches demonstrate limited language variation, with speech-print convergence emerging as a common brain signature of reading proficiency across the wide spectrum of selected languages, whether their writing system is alphabetic or logographic, whether it is opaque or transparent, and regardless of the phonological and morphological structure it represents.

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Aims and Objectives: Translation equivalents intuitively seem to overlap in meaning. Moreover, the models of the bilingual lexicon often represent the meaning shared between two translations as a holistic node in the semantic network. However, research on semantic representation and processing questions this holistic approach. For instance, abstract words are assumed to be more language-dependent, while concrete words' meanings are seen as more consistent cross-linguistically. The non-cognate translation priming paradigm offers an ideal methodological setting to study semantic overlap (proxied by concreteness) between translations. Priming effects between non-cognate translation equivalents are assumed to emerge due to spreading activation at the semantic level. Hence, a larger semantic overlap between translation prime-target pairs should lead to larger priming effects. Nevertheless, the evidence from previous translation priming studies investigating concreteness displays a blurry picture, potentially reflecting a shared limitation: their relatively small sample sizes. We overcame this problem by analysing the largest translation priming dataset to date. Methodology: Two hundred Spanish–English highly proficient bilinguals were tested in a bidirectional translation priming experiment employing 314 non-cognate translation equivalents differing in concreteness. Data and analysis: We analysed response times and error rates employing conservative (generalized) linear mixed-effects models. Findings: The results showed that concrete translation pairs elicited larger priming effects than abstract ones, evidencing differences in semantic representation between concrete and abstract words. Importantly, the influence of concreteness appeared only in the forward translation direction, suggesting language experience-related differences in meaning representation. Originality: The present study analysed the largest dataset in the translation priming literature to date, employing a conservative statistical approach to shed light on the effects of concreteness on translation priming. Implications: Our study spotlights the complexity and non-holistic nature of the bilingual semantic representation of concrete and abstract words. The present findings call for more research to help the current models of the bilingual lexicon implement more nuanced semantic representations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Epilepsy, a prevalent neurological disorder characterized by recurrent seizures, significantly impacts individuals' neurobiological, cognitive, and social lives. This report presents a feasibility study investigating the effects of a computerized cognitive training program on enhancing executive functions, particularly inhibitory control, in children and adolescents with epilepsy. Employing a pre-test–intervention–post-test design, the study involved 26 participants with diverse epileptic syndromes, focusing on those without severe intellectual disabilities. The intervention, based on the CogniFit Inc. platform, consisted of personalized tasks aiming to improve participants' inhibitory skills over 16 weeks, with an average of 40 sessions completed per participant. Results indicated significant improvements in reaction times and error rates in an anti-saccade task, demonstrating enhanced inhibitory control and general performance post-intervention. These findings suggest that targeted cognitive training is a feasible approach to bolster executive functions in young individuals with epilepsy, potentially improving their academic performance, employability, and social interactions. The study underscores the importance of early cognitive interventions in epilepsy management, highlighting the potential for computerized programs to aid in mitigating cognitive deficits associated with the condition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The scientific evidence regarding the possibility of transferring benefits derived from cognitive training focused on working memory and inhibitory control to reading skills in children aged 6 to 12 is inconclusive. This study carries out a systematic review of recent published studies on this topic with the aim of analysing the specific role of various cognitive stimulation programs in the growth of executive functions and reading performance in children from ages 6 to 12. Here, we present the main results reported in the most recent literature, where the impact of intervention programs on working memory and inhibitory control in children with typical development are analysed. Even though the effectiveness of executive function training programs in terms of close transfer is conspicuous, there is still a lack of convergence in recently published articles, especially regarding the effects of far transfer in reading comprehension after cognitive stimulation programs are applied. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present research aims to assess literacy acquisition in children becoming bilingual via second language immersion in school. We adopt a cognitive components approach, assessing text-level reading comprehension, a complex literacy skill, as well as underlying cognitive and linguistic components in 144 children aged 7 to 14 (72 immersion bilinguals, 72 controls). Using principal component analysis, a nuanced pattern of results was observed: although emergent bilinguals lag behind their monolingual counterparts on measures of linguistic processing, they showed enhanced performance on a memory and reasoning component. For reading comprehension, no between-group differences were evident, suggesting that selective benefits compensate costs at the level of underlying cognitive components. Overall, the results seem to indicate that literacy skills may be modulated by emerging bilingualism even when no between-group differences are evident at the level of complex skill, and the detection of such differences may depend on the focus and selectivity of the task battery used.