FRIPRO grant to study bilingualism and language learning
Young CAS PI Vincent DeLuca has been awarded 7.6 million Norwegian kroner to investigate how bilingual experience shapes the brain and cognitive abilities, and how these changes influence the capacity to learn new languages.
Vincent leads the Young CAS project ‘Using Diversity in Multilingual Experience as a Model to Study Neural Plasticity’. The FRIPRO supported study is closely connected to the core themes of his Young CAS project and will examine Norwegian-English bilingual participants before they begin learning Spanish through an app-based platform, providing valuable insights into the connections between bilingualism, brain function, and language acquisition.
The NOBELL Project
The project, titled "Neurocognitive Outcomes of Bilingualism and Effects on Language Learning" (NOBELL), aims to understand how bilingual experience creates brain adaptations that may affect subsequent language learning.
The research has two main goals: identifying which aspects of bilingual experience affect brain- and cognitive factors like attention and working memory, and establishing whether these bilingualism-influenced processes improve novel language learning outcomes.
The study will recruit Norwegian-English bilingual adults and assess their language backgrounds and cognitive abilities at baseline. Participants will then spend three months learning Spanish via an app-based platform, with proficiency assessed throughout the period to examine how bilingual experience, via brain and cognitive adaptations, affects language learning over time.
Supporting the Young CAS project
NOBELL directly supports the Vincent’s Young CAS project, which aims to produce a new model of neurocognitive adaptations to bilingual experience. The research will provide crucial empirical data to inform theory development while offering a more comprehensive understanding of these neurocognitive adaptations and their effects on specific neural networks and cognitive processes.
CAS congratulates Vincent on receiving this significant grant and looks forward to welcoming him and his research group to the Centre as part of the Young CAS Programme next year.