Bilingual memory: A subject trait or a task dimension

Abstract

The current theoretical formulation of bilingual memory (The Process View of Memory) assumes that all bilinguals are the same and thus attributes cross-language memory transfer effects to the processing components of memory tasks alone. However, the present study found that only early, but not late, bilinguals exhibited significant cross-language transfer effects in the implicit memory word fragment completion task under separate encoding conditions that involved perceptual, conceptual, and integrative processing (i.e., reading, imaging, and sentence processing). Results are taken to suggest that early and late bilinguals adopt different information processing strategies at encoding and retrieval, and question the notion of task processing demands as the only or main determinant of bilingual memory transfer. The present findings help explain the pattern of inconsistent bilingual transfer effects that have emerged in research studies conducted under the Process View of Memory and support the move toward the adoption of a bilingual memory paradigm in which cross-language transfer is explained in terms of both subject and task dimensions.