Vélez-Uribe, Idaly

An EEG experiment was design to test the influence of level of proficiency on processing of emotion content between languages in a sample of Spanish-English bilinguals divided by proficiency levels between two groups of bilinguals, one group of balanced (n=23) and another of unbalanced bilinguals (n=26). The participants rated words in three categories (negative, neutral, and positive) in terms of emotional valence in English and Spanish while EEG was recorded. Event-related potentials were calculated for two components related to emotion processing: the early posterior negativity (EPN) and the late positive complex LPC. 2 (Bilingual group) x 2 (language) x 3 (valence) x 3 (electrode) analyses were conducted on each component, separately for latency and amplitude. The results for the EPN latency indicated a marginally significant valence effect, with emotion words presenting shorter latencies than neutral words across conditions indicating a processing advantage of emotion content in both languages. The EPN amplitude also reflected the effect of valence, with larger amplitudes both emotion categories than for neutral words. The overall EPN amplitude was larger in Spanish than in English for both bilingual groups across valence categories. The LPC latency was longer in English than in Spanish for both bilingual groups, possibly related to Spanish being identified as native language in most of the sample. The LPC amplitude was larger for negative than for emotion than for neutral words for both groups in English and in Spanish for the Balanced group. The Unbalanced group, however, presented larger for positive than for neutral, and for neutral than for negative words. These results suggest that the Balanced and Unbalanced groups process emotion content similarly in English, but differently in Spanish. The Valence effects were consistent across languages for the Balanced group, but not for the Unbalanced group which might reflect an attenuation of the valence effect for negative words in Spanish for this group, and could indicate weaker emotional reactivity to negative words in the less proficient language.

The Big Five inventory is a 44-item scale that classifies participants based on five dimensions of personality with versions available in English and Spanish. Previous studies have found differences in BFI dimensions of Spanish-English bilinguals. We asked if Spanish-English bilinguals described themselves differently when answering in different languages. The present study investigated how Spanish-English bilinguals are classified when answering the BFI in both languages. In a cross-linguistic design, we assessed a sample of Spanish-English bilinguals. We hypothesized that we would find that bilinguals would score significantly different in both languages in the dimensions of extraversion and conscientiousness, with English scores being expected to be significantly higher than Spanish scores. Results revealed significantly different scores in Spanish and English in all five dimensions of the BFI. These results emphasize the issue of language in psychological evaluations, with the possibility of language dependence skewing the results for bilingual patients.

Word retrieval often presents a problem for aging populations. The Boston Naming Test (BNT) is a prevalent neuropsychological exam that uses word retrieval to reveal relevant information leading to a diagnosis of cognitive disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease or dementia. This study investigated the effects of age and gender on a confrontation naming test. Confrontation naming was assessed using the Boston Naming Test. The sample included 538 participants (185 males, 383 females) individuals residing in South Florida. Participants were divided into two groups, a high cognitive functioning and a low cognitive functioning group, based on the participant’s scores on the mini mental state examination (MMSE). Results did support the hypothesis that age has a significant effect on confrontational naming test ability in both cognitive groups. Conversely, the anticipation that gender would play a role on performance on the BNT for either group was not supported by the results.