بررسی ارتباط دوزبانگی با توانایی انتخاب منظر فضایی و خودتنظیمی

مقدمه: پژوهش‌ها نشان می‌دهد که دوزبانگی بر فرایندهای شناختی اثر دارند. با مطالعه دوزبانه‌های ترکی آذری/ فارسی‌زبان و تک‌زبانه‌های فارسی‌زبان، به بررسی شواهدی از مزیت‌های دوزبانگی در توانایی‌های انتخاب منظر فضایی و خودتنظیمی پرداختیم. روش کار: شرکت کنندگان در این پژوهش 39 نفر از دانشجویان تک‌زبانه و دوزبانه فارسی و ترکی با میانگین سنی 29 سال بودند. برای سنجش توانایی انتخاب منظر فضایی، از آزمون تصویری انتخاب منظر فضایی hegarty استفاده شد که طی آن از شرکت‌کنندگان خواسته شد که خود را در موقعیت‌های فضایی متعددی تصور کنند و زاویه‌ قرارگرفتن چند شیء را نسبت به موقعیت مجسم‌شده تشخیص دهند. برای سنجش توانایی خودتنظیمی،‌ یک معمای حل‌نشدنی که به زبان فارسی طراحی شده بود به هر دو گروه ارائه شد و مدت ‌زمان تلاش آنها برای حل معما به عنوان شاخص سنجش خودتنظیمی در نظر گرفته شد، به‌ طوری‌ که مدت ‌زمان بیشتر منجر به کسب نمره بالاتری در توانایی خودتنظیمی بود. برای سنجش ارتباط‌های مورد نظر بین متغیرها از آزمون‌های ناپارامتری من_ویتنی و همبستگی کندال استفاده شد.یافته‌ها: تفاوت نمره‌ خودتنظیمی افراد در دو گروه تک‌زبانه و دوزبانه معنا‌دار بود؛ به ‌عبارتی، افراد تک‌زبانه نمره خودتنظیمی کمتری داشتند. همچنین، ارتباط بین توانایی انتخاب منظر فضایی و دوزبانگی معنا‌دار نبود،‌ گرچه تفاوت‌های مشاهده ‌شده در میانگین‌ها و پراکندگی‌ها بین این دو گروه قابل توجه بود. بین توانایی‌های خودتنظیمی و انتخاب منظر فضایی نیز تفاوت معنا‌داری در هیچ ‌یک از دو گروه تک‌زبانه و دوزبانه مشاهده نشد. نتیجه‌گیری: نتایج نشان داد که بین دوزبانگی و خودتنظیمی ارتباط معنا‌دار وجود دارد. گرچه آزمون‌های همبستگی به لحاظ آماری معنا‌دار نبودند، افراد دوزبانه به ‌طور متوسط مدت ‌زمان کمتری را صرف آزمون انتخاب منظر فضایی کرده بودند که حاکی از بالاتر بودن متوسط توانایی انتخاب منظر فضایی در ایشان است. احتمال دارد که با بررسی بیشتر، بتوان به شواهد بیشتری برای معنا‌دار بودن تفاوت بین این دو گروه دست یافت.

Investigation of the relationship between bilingualism, spatial perspective-taking ability, and self-regulation

IntroductionAccording to Grosjean (2010), more than half of the world #39;s population is bilingual (2). This highlights the need to study different aspects of bilingualism. Due to the contemporary period rsquo;s sweeping social and cultural changes, many researchers believe bilingualism is considered normal and exceptional monolingualism. It was believed that bilingualism and learning two or more languages, especially in the early years of a person #39;s life, would confuse and impair a person #39;s cognitive and linguistic abilities, and in many respects, would confuse the individual. However, recent research has reinforced the notion that learning two languages has not only a negative cognitive and noncognitive effect but also improves individuals #39; brain functions and helps people outperform in cognitive and noncognitive tasks than their peer monolinguals (1). Different theories about the advantage of being bilingual predict that bilinguals should show superior performance in different cognitive tasks due to increased executive control functions. Although there is no consensus on this, some studies have shown that even if there is a difference in essential cognitive functions between bilinguals and monolinguals, this is not necessarily always the positive effect of bilingualism (5). Recently, accumulating research shows that bilingualism affects cognitive processes. Bilingual advantages were reported in executive functions, theory of mind, metalinguistic knowledge, sociopragmatic abilities, and some linguistic functions, including grammatical judgments (6). The present research examined the evidence for bilingual advantages in spatial perspectivetaking and selfregulation. The main question of this research is whether bilingual and monolingual individuals differ in their ability to choose a spatial perspective and selfregulating.MethodsAzeri TurkishPersian bilinguals and Persian monolinguals attended this study. Participants were asked to selfreport their language proficiency (listening comprehension and speaking skills) in Persian and Turkish on a scale of zero to ten using a selfassessment questionnaire. Participants rsquo; selfreported measures of language proficiency (speaking, comprehension, and reading) revealed that they were proficient in Turkish and Persian. Of the 39 participants, 21 participants spoke Persian at home. Factors such as age and education were controlled as disruptive factors that could lead to individual differences. The participants performed a visual task used in Hegarty (2004) (24). Then, to measure the ability of spatial perspectivetaking, a spatial perspectivetaking task designed by Hegarty et al. was used. This task has twelve visual items, in each of which the participant must visualize himself in different spatial situations and determine the degree of angle of the objects in question relative to the imagined position for himself. A second task was used to measure the dependent variable of selfregulation. For this purpose, we used an unsolvable puzzle (17). The participants were required to visualize themselves in different spatial situations and recognize the angle of the objects in relation to the visualized position. Moreover, unsolvable puzzles were presented to both groups in order to measure their selfregulation. In the last task, the more time a participant spent to find the answer, the higher the selfregulation score he/she obtained. This means that participants who ponder more on the unsolvable puzzle task have a higher ability to selfregulate.ResultsAs stated above, this study investigated the ability of spatial perspectivetaking of bilingual and monolingual individuals. This research used the spatial perspectivetaking task to assess the spatial perspectivetaking ability of TurkishPersian bilinguals and Farsi monolingual speakers. MannWhitney test and Kendall correlation coefficient test at the significance level of 5% were used to evaluate the significance of the relationship between the variables. The difference in selfregulation between the two bilingual and monolingual groups was significant. This study found that the monolingual participants had lower scores in selfregulation, and bilingual participants spent more time solving the puzzle and got a higher score. The relationship between spatial perspectivetaking and bilingualism was not significant, though the differences observed in the mean and standard deviations in two groups of bi and monolinguals are considerable. The results of the selfregulatory ability of monolingual and bilingual participants showed that most people who use both Turkish and Persian languages have higher scores in the selfregulatory task compared to their monolingual peers. In other words, monolingual people, on average, had less selfregulation ability, and the scatter of scores in this group was lower than bilingual people. Thus, the results of the present study are in line with the results of studies that found the effect of bilingualism on individuals #39; selfregulatory ability.ConclusionThe results showed that there was an association between bilingualism and performance in selfregulation tasks. Although Kendall correlation coefficients test between possible pairs of the variables related to the ability of spatial perspectivetaking and bilingualism were not statistically significant, the bilingual participants spent less time on the spatial perspectivetaking task, indicating the participants #39; ability of spatial perspective taking was higher than average. The statistical results did not show a significant difference between the scores of spatial and selfregulatory selection tests. However, careful attention to the means and data scatter of the studied variables indicates that people with lower scores in selfregulation tests, on average, have more ability to select landscape. In addition, it was observed that there is a significant relationship between the three scores of total duration of spatial selection test, total duration of selfregulation test, and the dominant language of people at home. Also, an essential finding of this test was that Persian monolingual participants tended mainly to the right in orientations, while TurkishPersian bilinguals tended mainly to the left in orientations. A closer look at the direction of the hints may provide useful information on the relationship between bilingualism and mapbased spatial orientation. The statistical results did not show a significant difference between the scores of spatial and selfregulated landscape selection tests. However, careful attention to the means and data scatter of the studied variables indicates that people with lower scores in the selfregulatory test, on average, have more ability to select perspective. In addition, it was observed that there is a significant relationship between the three scores of total duration of the spatial perspectivetaking task, total duration of selfregulation test, and the dominant language of people at home.Ethical ConsiderationsCompliance with ethical guidelinesThe researchers obtained informed consent from the participants, and all procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards.Authors rsquo; contributionsMehdi Purmohammad: Conceived the presented idea and contributed to experimental design. Azadeh Derakhshan: Designed the experiment, collected the data, and reported the results. Farzaneh Safavimanesh: Conducted the data analysis and contributed to experimental designFundingThis research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or notforprofit sectors.AcknowledgmentsWe would like to thank all participants who attended this study.Conflict of interestThe authors declare no conflicts of interest.