ЗВ'ЯЗОК УСПІШНОСТІ ВИВЧЕННЯ ІНОЗЕМНОЇ МОВИ ЗІ ШВИДКІСТЮ МІЖПІВКУЛЬНОГО ПЕРЕНЕСЕННЯ ІНФОРМАЦІЇ

Abstract

Bilingual speakers seem to outreach monolingual speakers in performing non-verbal tasks for testing executive functions, such as Simon, Flanker and Stroop tasks, as well as in capacity of working memory. Other researchers have doubts about these cognitive benefits of bilinguals and multilinguals. The study used a combined test with the tasks of the Stroop, Poffenberger, Sperry in native (Ukrainian) and foreign (English) languages. Schoolboys of lyceum were the subjects surveyed (14-15 years old). Stimuli (the word "Green" or "Red", "Blue" or "Yellow" written in relevant or irrelevant color) were exposed on the right or left from the center of the screen. In the case of congruence the word and its semantic meaning should press one button by the ipsilateral hand ("yes"), while in the case of mismatch – the other button by the contralateral one ("no"). Latent periods of response to stimuli, which reflect the speed of the interhemispheric transfer of information, were taken into account. Correlation analysis of the success in study in the nine subjects of the three blocks (humanities, natural and formal disciplines) reveal a direct correlation of speed of reaction when performing the complex Stroop test in both the native and English languages with the success in the learning English language, what may indicate on special dependence of the success from interhemispheric interaction. In order for the foreign language to be automated and become "all the more native", it is need the fast access of the executive structures of the brain, such as the front-parietal neural network, to the linguistic neural networks, presented in both hemispheres. According to literature, the inhibitory control mechanism from the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex as the key structure of the front-parietal brain system may be one of several mechanisms underlying bilingual superiority. The results obtained by us complement this conception, indicating the importance of the speed of interhemispheric interaction.