Effects of bilingualism on autobiographical memory: variation in idea density and retrieval speed

ABSTRACT

Prior work on bilingual memory has largely focused on working memory and less on autobiographical memory. In the present study, we tested the effect of bilingualism on autobiographical memory and examined whether an effect would be moderated or mediated by working memory. Spanish-English bilingual and English-only monolingual adults completed an autobiographical cued-recall task, as well as a working memory measure. Memories were coded for retrieval speed and propositional idea density. Bilingual status was associated with faster memory retrieval but did not affect propositional idea density. Better working memory was associated with slower memory retrieval but did not affect propositional idea density, nor did working memory moderate or mediate the effect of bilingualism. Together, these results indicate an effect of bilingualism on the speed of autobiographical memory retrieval that does not extend to autobiographical memory content and suggest that the effect of bilingualism is independent of the effect of working memory.

KEYWORDS:

• Autobiographical memory
• idea density
• working memory
• bilingualism

Acknowledgements

This study was supported by a National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant (R01 DC016015) to M. K. and a Hilldale Undergraduate Research Fellowship to A. R. We thank Dr. Milijana Buac, Ms. Charlotte Herbolsheimer, Ms. Gloria Lee, and Dr. Anne Neveu for their help with data collection, coding, translation, and analysis.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Hilldale Undergraduate Research Fellowship: [Grant Number ]; the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders: [Grant Number R01 DC016015].