LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 15:9 September 2015
ISSN 1930-2940

Managing Editor: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.
Editors: B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. A. Sharada, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         Lakhan Gusain, Ph.D.
         Jennifer Marie Bayer, Ph.D.
         S. M. Ravichandran, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         L. Ramamoorthy, Ph.D.
         C. Subburaman, Ph.D. (Economics)
         N. Nadaraja Pillai, Ph.D.
Assistant Managing Editor: Swarna Thirumalai, M.A.

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Auditory Working Memory in Monolinguals and Bilinguals –
A Comparison Using Auditory “N” Back Test

Theaja Kuriakose, M.Sc. Speech and Hearing
Anjali Aravind K.A, Nayana Benny, Afnaz Niloofer M.P
III B.Sc. Students

Abstract

Introduction: Auditory working memory is the ability to process information presented orally, analyze it mentally and store it to be recalled later. There are various methods to measure auditory memory skills. Auditory n-back is one of the frequently used methods to measure auditory working memory. Studies on the impact of bilingualism on cognitive development point out that bilingualism in children is associated with increased metacognitive skills and superior divergent thinking ability and with better performance on some perceptual tasks and classification tasks. The present study was taken up to investigate the auditory working memory in bilingual children using auditory 2 back task and to compare with that of monolingual children.

Method: A total of 60 subjects, which consisted of both monolingual and bilingual children, participated in the study. Stimuli for the study was prepared by using 7 common bi-syllabic words in Malayalam, out of which 5 words were repeated twice to make a string of 12 words. Children were instructed to say “yes” if the stimulus was repeated 2 steps back and say “no” if the stimulus was not repeated.

Results: The result indicated that bilingual children performed significantly better than monolingual children in auditory 2 back task (p>0.05) suggesting that the processing capacity for bilingual children is better than that of monolingual children.

Conclusion: Results of the present study indicated a better performance in auditory working memory for bilingual children than that of monolinguals. There may be a positive effect on the formation of cognitive processes in early bilinguals.

Keywords:

Introduction

“Working memory” (WM) refers to the ability to hold on to pieces of information until the pieces blend into a full thought or concept, i.e., it refers to the limited capacity system that allows simultaneous storage and processing of temporary information (Baddeley, 1974). Based on the type of stimuli, working memory can be classified as visual working memory and auditory working memory. Auditory working memory is the ability to process information presented orally, analyze it mentally and store it to be recalled later. Visual memory and auditory memory are different categories of the broader concept of memory, the recollection of information. Visual memory refers to the recollection of visual information whereas auditory memory is the recollection of things that were heard.

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

Theaja Kuriakose, M.Sc. Speech and Hearing
thejakuriakose@gmail.com

Anjali Aravind
K.A, Nayana Benny
Afnaz Niloofer M. P.
III B.Sc. Students

JSS Institute of Speech and Hearing
Ooty Road
Mysore 570 025
Karnataka, India

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