Imitating the Robots: Measuring Memory Flexibility with Monolingual and Bilingual Preschoolers

Abstract

Millions of children in the United States are growing up hearing multiple languages. Memory flexibility is the ability to apply information from a past experience to future situations that are perceptually different from the initial learning experience and differs between monolinguals and bilinguals during infancy. We use a new, non-verbal object sequencing imitation task (OSI) to measure memory flexibility changes in monolingual and bilingual preschoolers. In the OSI task, children imitate target actions to produce a final pose on a robot figure. Children are tested with different robots than those used to demonstrate the target actions to test memory flexibility. We hypothesized that both monolingual and bilingual children would imitate the sequences significantly above baseline, but bilingual preschoolers would do so at a greater rate than their monolingual peers. To test this hypothesis, we visited 101 3-year-olds in their homes. An experimenter demonstrated 2- to 5-step sequences on one robot, and children were tested on a functionally similar but perceptually different robot. All preschoolers performed significantly above baseline on the total composite percentage score (the correct number of movements and pairs summed across all sequences, divided by the possible maximum score). There were no significant differences between monolinguals and bilinguals in baseline and test trials. We repeated the same pattern of results using a multi-level model, including all trials. The common binary classification of bilinguals and monolinguals often does not adequately describe the complex experience of growing up in a bilingual environment. Modeling the heterogeneity that arises from growing up in a bilingual home is important for understanding how this arrangement could impact an individual’s cognitive development. To consider such heterogeneity, we implemented latent profile modeling to identify language groups based on a series of variables such as L2, L3 exposure, speakers’ nativeness to the languages, and speakers’ proficiency and identified three profiles (low, medium, and high multilingual exposure). The pattern of results remained the same. We conclude that memory flexibility differences exhibited during infancy may plateau during early childhood.