Bilingual social cognition: Investigating the relationship between bilingual language experience and mentalizing

Abstract

Mentalizing is a dynamic form of social cognition that is strengthened by language experience and proficiency. Similarly, bilingual children and adults consistently outperform monolinguals on traditional tasks. Here, we probe the relationship between bilingual language experience and mentalizing by investigating first (L1) versus second language (L2) mentalizing, and whether individual differences in language diversity continuously pattern with mentalizing judgments. We tested sixty-one bilingual adults on an on-line reading and inference task that compared mental state and logical inferences. We find that all readers judge mental state inferences as less coherent than logical inferences, but L2 readers make this judgment for mental state inferences faster than L1 readers. Moreover, L2 readers overmentalize logical inferences compared to L1 readers. In addition, greater language diversity patterns with higher mentalizing for mental state inferences across all readers. Together, we find evidence in favor of a positive relationship between bilingual language experience and mentalizing.

Bilingual language experience as a multidimensional spectrum: Associations with objective and subjective language proficiency

“…We then show that individual scores on these constructs are associated with self-reported language proficiency (such as L2 abilities and L2 foreign accentedness; Gullifer & Titone, 2020a) and with proactive executive control abilities and associated brain networks (Gullifer et al, 2018; Gullifer & Titone, 2020b), in line with predictions of theoretical models outlined above. Work by others shows that language entropy is related to patterns of dual language use such as engagement in language mixing (Kałamała, Szewczyk, Chuderski, Senderecka, & Wodniecka, 2020), the ability to mentalize (or engage in social–cognitive processing) in the first and second languages (Tiv, O’Regan, & Titone, 2020), and the organization of brain networks responsible for language and executive control (Sulpizio et al, 2019).…”

Bridging interpersonal and ecological dynamics of cognition through a systems framework of bilingualism.

“…Our ongoing work extends this theoretical framework to other aspects of cognition, including language attitudes (Feng et al, under review), implicit bias (Kutlu et al, in press, under review), and cognitive perspective-taking or mentalizing (Tiv, O'Regan, et al, 2021).…”

“…Similarly, bilingual adults' word productions were constrained by the linguistic profile of where they lived (Beatty-Martínez et al, 2019), which in another study, further impacted language learning among monolinguals (Bice & Kroll, 2019). Related work has shown that mere exposure to diverse linguistic environments can shape social cognitive behavior among children and infants (Fan et al, 2015;Liberman et al, 2017), while greater social diversity in one's own language use promotes social cognition among adults (Tiv, O'Regan, et al, 2021). Such efforts honor the potential role of social context and history in shaping language use (Ortega, 2020), and highlight how bilingual experience can offer a unique window into broader theoretical questions about the interplay of cognitive and social processes.…”

Bilingual language experience as a multidimensional spectrum: Associations with objective and subjective language proficiency

“…9 associated with self-reported language proficiency (such as L2 abilities and L2 foreign accentedness, Gullifer & Titone, 2019) and with proactive executive control abilities and associated brain networks Gullifer & Titone, in press), in line with predictions of theoretical models outlined above. Work by others shows that language entropy is related to patterns of dual-language use such as engagement in language mixing (Kałamała, Szewczyk, Chuderski, Senderecka, & Wodniecka, 2020), the ability to mentalize (or engage in social-cognitive processing) in the first and second language (Tiv, O'Regan, & Titone, 2020), and the organization of brain networks responsible for language and executive control (Sulpizio et al, 2019).…”