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- Title
Attention control and ability level in a complex cognitive skill: Attention shifting and second-language proficiency.
- Authors
Segalowitz, Norman; Frenkiel-Fishman, Sarah
- Abstract
In this study, we investigated the relationship between attention control and proficiency in a complex cognitive skill. The participants were English-French bilinguals with varying degrees of second- language (French) proficiency. Proficiency was operationalized as efficiency of lexical access in an animacy judgment task, as reflected in the coefficient of variability of response time adjusted for first-language performance on the same task. Attention control was operationalized as the shift cost obtained in a linguistic version of the alternating runs task-switching paradigm. Hierarchical regression revealed that, overall, attention control accounted for 59% of the variance of proficiency and that second-language attention control alone accounted for 32% of the unique variance of proficiency, indicating a high degree of skill domain (second language) specificity in the relationship between attention control and proficiency. The results speak to issues regarding the development of expertise, second-language acquisition, and a cognitive linguistic approach to language and attention.
- Subjects
FRANCE; ATTENTION; INTEREST (Psychology); LANGUAGE &; languages; PSYCHOLINGUISTICS; JUDGMENT (Psychology)
- Publication
Memory & Cognition, 2005, Vol 33, Issue 4, p644
- ISSN
0090-502X
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.3758/BF03195331