ArticlePloS one2022
Using big data to understand bilingual performance in semantic fluency: Findings from the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging.
Article in PloS one, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Item-Level Analysis of Category Fluency Test Performance: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Studies of Normal and Neurologically Abnormal Ageing.Neuropsychology review · 2025Pooled it
- The Association Between Bilingual Animal Naming and Memory Among Bilingual Mexican American Older Adults.Journal of geriatric psychiatry and neurology · 2025Article
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Authors and funding
2 authors.
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Abstract
objectivesThis study aimed to characterize verbal fluency performance in monolinguals and bilinguals using data from the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging (CLSA).
methodsA large sample of adults aged 45-85 (n = 12,875) completed a one-minute animal fluency task in English. Participants were English-speaking monolinguals (n = 9,759), bilinguals who spoke English as their first language (L1 bilinguals, n = 1,836), and bilinguals who spoke English as their second language (L2 bilinguals, n = 1,280). Using a distributional modeling approach to quantify the semantic similarity of words, we examined the impact of word frequency and pairwise semantic similarity on performance on this task.
resultsOverall, L1 bilinguals outperformed monolinguals on the verbal fluency task: they produced more items, and these items were of lower average frequency and semantic similarity. Monolinguals in turn outperformed L2 bilinguals on these measures. The results held across different age groups, educational, and income levels. DISCUSSION: These results demonstrate an advantage for bilinguals compared to monolinguals on a category fluency task, when performed in the first language, indicating that, at least in the CLSA sample, bilinguals have superior semantic search capabilities in their first language compared to monolingual speakers of that language.
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