| Bilingual Immigrants Recall Childhood Memories Better In Mother
Tongue
CHICAGO --- Bilingual immigrants recall childhood events better
and in more detail in their mother tongue than in their adopted language.
Such memories are also more salient and emotional, said Robert
W. Schrauf, a psychological anthropologist at Northwestern University
Medical School. He believes one explanation for this, a cognitive
one, is that remembering is "state dependent" — that
is, memory has language.
Schrauf, a research assistant professor in the Buehler Center
on Aging, has been studying cognitive patterns in bilinguals for
several years. An article on his research on bilingual autobiographical
memory recently was published the journal Culture & Psychology.
"There is a tantalizing array of evidence, from formal
and experimental to informal and testimonial, that suggests that
becoming bicultural and speaking two languages has the ‘feel’
of living in two worlds and perhaps of being different persons in
those worlds," Schrauf said.
"Studying bilingual memory opens a unique window onto
the relationship of language and memory," he said.
Results of Schrauf’s studies may have major significance
in the treatment of aging bilingual patients and immigrants who develop
Alzheimer’s disease.
The number of foreign-born immigrants living in the United States
tripled from 1970 through 1998, totaling over 26 million in 2001.
Three million of these individuals are 65 and older.
Schrauf noted that prevalence of Alzheimer’s disease among
the nation’s aging immigrant population is at least equal to
that of natives. Therefore, it is highly likely that a growing number
of older immigrants will have Alzheimer’s disease.
Research shows that for persons with Alzheimer’s disease,
the detailed recollection of personal events is compromised during
the progression of the disease and is increasingly focused on events
from youth and childhood.
Research by Schrauf and others has shown that the person who
immigrates as an adult undergoes considerable cognitive change from
the first half of life to the second. Memories of childhood and youth
are stored under one set of conditions — mother tongue, life
in the homeland — and are remembered under a different set of
conditions — second language, adopted country.
Because stimulating memories in the mother tongue leads to
specific, detailed and emotionally salient recollections of the personal
past, these memories may "jump start" further recollection
of past events and open a window onto a past that might otherwise
remain dim, Schrauf said.
"Since knowing who we are is so critically tied to our
stories about the past, the identification of key factors that optimize
autobiographical retrieval will assist in the testing and evaluation
of cognitive impairments and the development of appropriate ‘reminiscence’
therapies for patients suffering from Alzheimer’s disease,"
he said.
Schrauf and collaborator David Rubin of Duke University recently
received a grant from the National Institute on Aging to investigate
the memories of people who migrated and learned a second language
as adults. With researchers in the Cognitive Neurology and Alzheimer’s
Disease Center of Northwestern University and the Alzheimer’s
Association, he also is developing support programs for patients
with Alzheimer’s disease and their families at Casa Central,
Chicago’s largest Hispanic social service agency.
3/5/01
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