The Impact Of Gender And Bilingualism On Working Memory

Abstract

There are many people across the world who are able to speak more than one language fluently. It is known that learning a new language is a rather challenging task as your brain has to construct new cognitive frameworks. This creates the idea that being able to speak more than one language may benefit one’s memory. It has also been found that men’s brains are more analytical which may provide them with an advantage concerning memory. In turn, both gender and bilingualism may work together and impact one’s working memory. To test whether gender and bilingualism have an effect on working memory, 50 participants (male bilinguals, male monolinguals, female bilinguals and female monolinguals) took part in a digit span test to examine the effects of gender and bilingualism on working memory in a between-subjects 2-way ANOVA design. Results show that there was an insignificant relationship between the two factors and their effect on working memory. These results contribute to our knowledge of memory as it provides a basic understanding of the nature of memory processes concerning gender and language.

Introduction

Working memory is explained as ‘a small amount of information that can be held in mind and used in the execution of cognitive tasks' (N Cowen, 2014). The skill of learning a new language is complex so it could be inferred that those who are able to learn new languages or speak more than one have a more developed cognition. The aim of this study is to see whether gender and bilingualism have an impact on working memory. It looks at whether bilinguals and monolinguals differ in their working memory and if gender also has an effect where there would be a difference between male and female working memory.

Working memory was measured using a digit span test where participants repeated sequences backwards to test their number storage capacity on immediate recall. It is expected that there would be an interaction between bilingualism and gender regarding our working memory when linked together. Previous research demonstrates that ‘bilingual children demonstrate cognitive advantages’ (Bialystok, 1999) and that there is an ‘advantage for bilingual children in working memory that is especially evident when the task contains additional executive function demands’ (Morales et al, 2003). It has also been found that there is a male advantage in spatial abilities (Voyer et al, 2009). For this reason, it is presumed that bilinguals have better working memory than monolinguals and males have better working memory than females. However, there is a lack in research linking the two factors to see if they have an effect on memory so this study looks at whether there really is an effect. Overall, results should present that bilingual males have a developed memory advantage compared with the rest of the population and that female monolinguals are at a disadvantage. The alternative hypothesis for this study is that there is a connection between bilingualism and gender regarding working memory.

Methodology

Design

A between-subjects two-way ANOVA was conducted in which participants took part in a digit span test backwards to measure whether gender and bilingualism has an effect on working memory. The different categories that participants belonged to were; male monolinguals, male bilinguals, female monolinguals and female bilinguals. Participants have revealed which category they belong to and then took part in the memory test (See Appendix ii for graphic representation of the memory test). Participants Participants were 50 healthy male and female individuals over 18 years of age. A convenience sample was used by 4 researchers to recruit participants using any connection with friends, family, co-workers and university colleagues to form a random sample of the population. Participants consisted of 25 males and 25 females who were subdivided into; 14 male monolinguals, 11 male bilinguals, 6 female monolinguals and 19 female bilinguals. Recruitment was based on data collection for a student research report and ethical issues were considered.

Materials

Participants were first presented with a participant information sheet where they have had to state whether they were male or female with a self-describe option available and if they were monolingual or bilingual. On the same sheet there was a section where the researcher would write what memory score they got out of 10 from the digit span test. (see appendix i for participant information sheet). Researchers have then read aloud the digits in order from the memory test to participants for them to repeat backwards (see appendix ii for visual representation of the memory test).

Procedure

Participants were briefed concerning the experimental protocol. All participants gave informed consent prior to commencing the experiment. They were required to state their gender and whether they were monolingual or bilingual. They were then read aloud a set of numbers which they would have to listen to then repeat backwards. For example, if the researcher said “7,4” they would say “4,7”. If they got it correct they would then be told the next sequence to repeat with each one increasing by an increment of 1. There were 10 sets of numbers and participants would stop once they got a sequence wrong and their score was recorded out of 10.

Ethics

Prior to commencing the experiment, participants were informed that they had the right to choose whether to participate or not and that they were able to withdraw from the study at any point during the experiment without needing to give a reason. They were verbally briefed at the start as they were told the aims of the study and the purpose of the research was explained. They were guaranteed that their data will be anonymised to ensure that it cannot be linked to them. All data has been treated with full confidentiality and participants cannot be identified as the only data obtained was their gender and whether they are monolingual or bilingual. Participants were also debriefed at the end of the study and were provided with the researchers’ email addresses and the supervising seminar leader’s email address if they wish to contact them after participating. Once they were happy with all information provided they have signed the consent form which were handed in to the supervising seminar leader.

Discussion

The results above display that there was no interaction between gender and bilingualism regarding working memory. Whilst both seemed to have an effect on memory separately, there was no interacting link between the two which proves a connection between the two factors.

Whilst this supports the initial idea that male bilinguals would have a cognitive advantage and produce higher memory scores compared to the other subgroups, the results were not significant so we have had to reject the hypothesis. This could be a result of obtaining a rather small sample so there were not enough participants to prove that the two factors have a great effect on working memory when combined together. It is also possible that the study is underpowered as there was not enough research to support whether speaking more than one language whilst being part of a specific gender effects memory and it still requires more research to establish whether there is a link. The memory task used in the study may limit its ability to be generalised to wider population as the task was artificial. This is because it involved recall of random numbers which could be considered a meaningless task making it unclear of how it relates to memory in everyday life. This may result in the study having low ecological validity as it has been found that memory is encoded semantically and ‘semantic memory is the memory necessary for the use of language’ (Tulving E, 1972).

Therefore, in order to find an effect. a more meaningful test should be used such as how many groceries could be recalled from a shopping list which may alter the results found. A useful direction for future research into this study would be to use a larger sample as this would provide more data to work with. It is also advised to use an equal number of participants per subgroup as this study had used 10 more bilinguals than monolinguals which may have affected the results and there were also unequal numbers of participants per subgroup (11 male bilinguals, 14 male monolinguals, 19 female bilinguals, 6 female monolinguals) which could have influenced why the results weren’t significant as there should be an equal amount of participants per group being studied. This could have had an effect on why female monolinguals have performed with the lowest mean 2. 83 (SD = 1. 17) as there was not as many female monolingual participants and 6 participants is too small to generalise the results and represent the population. If this study is repeated and significance is found it could create a type I error as we have rejected the alternative hypothesis and accepted the null hypothesis where significance has been found.

Although, this would mean that male bilinguals do have a cognitive advantage where they are better able to memorise things but there is not enough research to support the idea. This differs from previous research which found ‘strong gender differences in the pattern of brain activation associated with working memory tasks’ (Speck et al, 2000) as there hasn’t been any strong findings from this study to prove that there are gender differences in working memory. The general finding of this study is that gender and bilingualism do not relate together in regards to memory. It can be interpreted that they may have separate effects such as a male or a bilingual having greater recall but not a male bilingual. This rejects the notion that gender and bilingualism are intertwined when looking at memory. This has significant implications for real-world practice as it can be inferred that our nature (gender) and nurture (language) could affect memory in our everyday lives. Thus consideration should be given into genetic and societal factors which may affect working memory.