Korai kétnyelvuség és tudatelmélet: A kétnyelvuség elonyei a versengo mentális reprezentációk kezelésében

Translated title of the contribution: Early bilingualism and theory of mind

Ágnes Kovács Melinda*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to Book/Report typesChapterpeer-review

Abstract (may include machine translation)

According to the main view of social cognition, children become able to reason about mental representations only after the age of four. However, other researchers have argued that such theory of mind abilities are innate, and that the observed differences are due to other processes (e.g., executive functions] involved in solving theory-of-mind problems. The present work investigated these assumptions through studies performed with bilingual children. According to the results, pro-cessing different languages enhances the development of executive functions already at 7 months of age, before the onset of speech. Furthermore, their more developed executive functions allow bilingual preschoolers to perform better on theory-of-mind tasks, where well-developed executive functions are necessary, as children have to resolve a conflict between two mental representations. Crib bilingualism results in changes that go beyond the domain of language and seems to enhance soclo-cognitive development.

Translated title of the contributionEarly bilingualism and theory of mind
Original languageHungarian
Title of host publicationAltalanos Nyelveszeti Tanulmanyok
PublisherAkademiai Kiado Rt.
Pages215-243
Number of pages29
ISBN (Print)9789630594271
StatePublished - 2013

Publication series

NameAltalanos Nyelveszeti Tanulmanyok
Volume25
ISSN (Print)0569-1338

Keywords

  • Cognitive effects of bilingualism
  • Early bilingualism
  • Executive functions
  • Theory of mind

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