Interoperation transfer in Chinese-English bilinguals' arithmetic.
We examined interoperation transfer of practice in adult Chinese-English bilinguals' memory for simple multiplication (6 × 8 = 48) and addition (6 + 8 = 14) facts. The purpose was to determine whether they possessed distinct number-fact representations in both Chinese (L1) and English (L2). Participants repeatedly practiced multiplication problems (e.g., 4 × 5 = ?), answering a subset in L1 and another subset in L2. Then separate groups answered corresponding addition problems (4 + 5 = ?) and control addition problems in either L1 (N = 24) or L2 (N = 24). The results demonstrated language-specific negative transfer of multiplication practice to corresponding addition problems. Specifically, large simple addition problems (sum > 10) presented a significant response time cost (i.e., retrieval-induced forgetting) after their multiplication counterparts were practiced in the same language, relative to practice in the other language. The results indicate that our Chinese-English bilinguals had multiplication and addition facts represented in distinct language-specific memory stores.
Department of Psychology, University of Saskatchewan, 9 Campus Drive, Saskatoon, SK, S7N 5A5, Canada. jamie.campbell@usask.ca
Jamie I D
JI
Campbell
Roxanne R
RR
Dowd
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008433:Mathematics; D008568:Memory; D019303:Multilingualism; D011214:Practice, Psychological; D011930:Reaction Time; D014163:Transfer, Psychology