Where Language Meets Thought

In the World Library of Psychologists series, international experts present career-long collections of what they judge to be their most interesting publications - extracts from books, key articles, research findings, and practical and theoretical contributions. Ellen Bialystok has published widely in the field of cognitive development and decline across the lifespan. Her research uses behavioral and neuroimaging methods to examine the effect of experience on cognitive and brain systems with a focus on bilingualism. Her discoveries include the identification of differences in the development of cognitive and language abilities for monolingual and bilingual children, the use of different brain networks by monolingual and bilingual young adults performing cognitive tasks, and the postponement of symptoms of dementia in bilingual older adults. In other studies, she has investigated the effects of bilingual education on children's development and the cognitive and brain consequences of bilingualism in older adults. Including a specially written introduction, in which Ellen Bialystok reflects on the role that language plays on thought, this collection will serve as a valuable resource for students and researchers of psycholinguistics, developmental psychology, and applied linguistics.

Ellen Bialystok is a Distinguished Research Professor of Psychology at York University and Associate Scientist at the Rotman Research Institute of Baycrest. She is an Officer of the Order of Canada (OC), a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (FRSC), and a Killam Prize laureate. She also holds an honorary doctorate (Doctor Philosophiae Honoris Causa) from the University of Oslo and is the recipient of numerous other awards and fellowships.

Part I: Metalinguistic and cognitive development in children Chapter 1. Factors in the growth of linguistic awareness Chapter 2. Independent effects of bilingualism and socioeconomic status on language ability and executive functioning Part II: Behavioral studies across the lifespan Chapter 3. Bilingualism, aging, and cognitive control: Evidence from the Simon task Chapter 4. Cognitive control and lexical access in younger and older bilinguals Part III: Including the brain Chapter 5. Bilingualism: Consequences for mind and brain Chapter 6. The bilingual adaptation: How minds accommodate experience Part IV: The cognitive reserve effect Chapter 7. Bilingualism as a protection against the onset of symptoms of dementia Chapter 8. Bilingualism: Pathway to cognitive reserve Part V: Mechanisms and implications: What's going on and why does it matter? Chapter 9. Increases in attentional demands are associated with language group differences in working memory performance Chapter 10. The swerve: How childhood bilingualism changed from liability to benefit