Visual Field asymmetries for verbal and dot localization tasks in monolingual and bilingual subjects

Bilingual experience modulates hemispheric lateralization in visual word processing

“…Previous brain imaging studies found that bilinguals and monolinguals may recruit different neural networks when processing the same language (e.g., Wang et al, 2011). In contrast, some previous behavioral studies showed that, compared with monolinguals, bilinguals have reduced hemispheric lateralization in some RH dominant visual tasks such as face perception, but not in some LH dominant visual tasks such as word naming or word matching (e.g., Hausmann et al, 2004;Sewell & Panou, 1983). Nevertheless, in these previous studies the performance level in the word recognition tasks between the two groups was not matched; in addition, the results were based on bilinguals who read two alphabetic languages (i.e., English-French bilinguals, English-German bilinguals, and Turkish-German bilinguals).…”

“…In the dot localization task, a 4 × 5 grid with a dot in one of the boxes was shown unilaterally, and participants were required to report the location of the dot. Thus, Sewell and Panou's (1983) results suggested that the processing of some visual tasks such as spatial dot localization may be influenced by participants’ language experiences. About 20 years later, Hausmann, Durmusoglu, Yazgan and Gunturkun (2004) examined performance of Turkish–German bilinguals and German monolinguals in some visual tasks and found results consistent with Sewell and Panou's (1983) study.…”

“…The results of the previous studies suggested that bilinguals and monolinguals might differ in how they process visual words. For example, in Sewell and Panou's (1983) word naming task, words were presented unilaterally and participants were required to report the word they perceived; the display time used was 20 ms and 40 ms for monolinguals and bilinguals, respectively. The authors selected these display times so that the two groups made approximately the same number of errors.…”

“…In addition to language processing, it has been shown that bilinguals have reduced lateralization in some visual tasks that typically involves RH lateralization compared with monolinguals, such as visuospatial processing (e.g., Witelson, 1976) and face processing (e.g., Kanwisher, McDermott & Chun, 1997; Le Grand, Mondloch, Maurer & Brent, 2003; Rhodes, 1993). For example, in the 1980s, Sewell and Panou (1983) observed the typical right visual field (RVF)/left hemisphere (LH) advantage in accuracy in an English word naming task in all English–German bilinguals, English–French bilinguals, and English monolinguals; however, the typical left visual field (LVF)/RH advantage in a spatial dot localization task was only found in the monolinguals but not in the bilinguals. In the dot localization task, a 4 × 5 grid with a dot in one of the boxes was shown unilaterally, and participants were required to report the location of the dot.…”

Bilingualism affects audiovisual phoneme identification

“…Moreover, some studies suggested that bilingual exposure could lead to changes in brain organization and affect face perception and spatial localization tasks that are linked to hemispheric asymmetry (Sewell and Panou, 1983 ). More recently, Haussman et al ( 2004 ) investigated hemispheric specialization differences between German monolinguals and German-Turkish bilinguals during linguistic and face-discrimination tasks.…”