Bilingualism and math cognition

Within cognitive psychology, the fields of bilingualism and math cognition have been investigated relatively separately from one another. Although there has been a substantial amount of research conducted in both areas, few studies have examined mathematical processes as they relate to bilinguals. A couple of the traditional effects found in the math cognition literature, the problem size and associative confusion effects, have been studied with bilinguals; however, bilingual categorization was not carefully controlled for in those studies. There have also been mathematical models applied to bilingual samples; one such model is the encoding-complex model, which has been extended to Chinese-English bilinguals. The current study aims to examine math cognition effects after careful control of bilingual categorization has been taken. Tasks will include number naming, simple arithmetic production, and simple arithmetic verification utilizing associative confusion problems with Spanish-English and English- Spanish bilinguals. The study will also examine whether or not the encoding-complex model can be successfully extended from Chinese-English bilinguals to Spanish-English and English-Spanish bilinguals