This paper proposes a shared, distributed, asymmetrical model for the bilingual mental lexicon. To test the sharing of conceptual relations across translation equivalents, Experiment 1 used the classical priming paradigm with specific methodological innovations, trying to satisfy various constraints that had not been addressed in previous studies. The results suggest shared storage for the conceptual representations of the bilingual's two vocabularies and asymmetrical links between concepts and lexical names in the two languages. Experiment 2 examined the details of meaning separation by eliciting semantic closeness rankings for conceptual relations that are equivalent across language translations and those that are not. The results indicate that bilinguals tend to integrate conceptual differences between translation equivalents, but that they also display a “separatist” tendency to maintain the L1 conceptual system in the representation of L1 words and to adopt the L2 conceptual system in the representation of L2 words.

The present longitudinal study was intended to investigate whether the two bilingual experiences of written translation and consecutive interpreting (featured with similar language switching experience but different processing demands) would produce different cognitive control effects in young adults. Three groups of Chinese–English young adult bilinguals, who differed mainly in their half-year long bilingual experience: one for general L2 training, one for written translation and one for oral consecutive interpreting, were tested twice on the number Stroop, switching color-shape and N-back tasks. The results show that the interpreting experience produced significant cognitive advantages in switching (switch cost) and updating, while the translating experience produced marginally significant improvements in updating. The findings indicate that the experience of language switching under higher processing demands brings more domain-general advantages, suggesting that processing demand may be a decisive factor for the presence or absence of the hot-debated bilingual advantages.

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The exoskeleton-type system is a brand new type of man—machine intelligent system. It fully combines human intelligence and machine power so that machine intelligence and human operator's power are both enhanced. Therefore, it achieves a high-level performance that neither could separately. This paper describes the basic exoskeleton concepts from biological system to man—machine intelligent systems. It is followed by an overview of the development history of exoskeleton-type systems and their two main applications in teleoperation and human power augmentation. Besides the key technologies in exoskeleton-type systems, the research is presented from several viewpoints of the biomechanical design, system structure modelling, cooperation and function allocation, control strategy, and safety evaluation.

Recent research in cognitive effects of bilingualism has generated both excitement and controversy. The current paper provides an overview of this literature that has taken a componential approach toward cognitive effects of bilingualism, according to which bilingual advantages in executive functions are measured in terms of executive control (inhibiting, switching, updating) and monitoring. Findings to date indicate that the presence or absence of bilingual advantages may be influenced by a variety of learner and environmental factors, including the bilingual individual's age, age of acquisition, language proficiency, frequency of language use, and difficulty of the experimental task. The cognitive effects of bilingualism must be interpreted in light of the bilingual's lifelong linguistic experience, which results in adaptive changes in the mind and the brain. We suggest directions for future research in this domain.