| 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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