Although extensive research has focused on the perceptual abilities of second language (L2) learners, a significant gap persists in understanding how cognitive functions like phonological short-term memory (PSTM) and nonverbal intelligence (IQ) impact L2 speech perception. This study sets out to investigate the discrimination of L2 English…

This study examined whether different cognitive correlates are associated with spelling of different target types, such as phonologically consistent and inconsistent syllables, of Korean Hangul among 94 five-year-old first language (L1) Korean children and 41 foreign language (FL) learners who are Hong Kong Chinese college students. Korean…

To build a coherent accurate mental representation of a text, readers routinely validate information they read against the preceding text and their background knowledge. It is clear that both sources affect processing, but "when" and "how" they exert their influence remains unclear. To examine the time course and cognitive…

L1 and L2 writers attend to different aspects of the formulation subprocess of writing. L2 writers devote more time and attention to low-level aspects such as grammar correction and spelling (Barbier 1998; Fagan and Hayden 1988; Whalen and Ménard 1995), leading to better spelling performances than L1 writers (Gunnarsson-Largy 2013). In…

In second language (L2) academic writing, being able to think in the L2 as opposed to thinking in the L1 and then translating into an L2 utterance may contribute to greater success in foreign-language writing. It reduces cognitive load, frees up more time and cognitive capacity to focus on syntactic structures in the target language and achieve…

Listening comprehension (LC) is considered an important but complex skill that predicts later reading comprehension in various languages. In this study, we aimed at understanding the relationship of LC with different linguistic and cognitive components. For this purpose, 262 Arabic-speaking kindergartners participated in this study. Our regression…

Studies with U.S. secondary second language (L2) learners have revealed individual differences (IDs) in first language (L1) skills and L2 aptitude and shown that these IDs are related to L2 achievement and proficiency. In this study, U.S. students were administered measures of L1 achievement, L1 cognitive processing, and L2 aptitude; followed…

This functional magnetic resonance imaging study examined the neural correlates of coherence-break detection during reading in the context of a contradiction paradigm. Young adults (N = 31, ages 19-27) read short narratives (half contained a break in coherence) that were presented sentence by sentence in a self-paced, slow event-related design.…

Adults demonstrate difficulty and pronounced variability when developing second language (L2) grammatical knowledge and reading skills. We examine explanations in terms of individual differences in working memory (WM). Despite numerous studies, the association between WM and adult second language (L2) acquisition remains unclear, and longitudinal…

The goal of the current study was to examine bilinguals' phonological short-term and working memory performance in their native/first (L1) and second (L2) languages. Korean-English bilinguals were tested in both Korean (L1) and English (L2). Short-term memory (STM) was measured via a nonword repetition task, where participants repeated…

This article reports a latent variable study exploring the specific links among executive processes of working memory, phonological short-term memory, phonological awareness, and proficiency in first (L1), second (L2), and third (L3) languages in 8- to 9-year-olds experiencing multilingual education. Children completed multiple L1-measures of…

Due to the lack of span test for the use in language-specific and cross-language studies, this study provides L1 and L2 researchers with a reliable language-independent span test (math span test) for the measurement of working memory capacity. It also describes the development, validation, and scoring method of this test. This test included 70…