Bilingual verbal and nonverbal creative behavior

| 211 ‘International JournalKharkhurin: of Bilingualism’ • Volume 14• and Number 2 • 2010, 211–226| Bilingual verbal nonverbal creativity

Bilingual verbal and nonverbal creative behavior Anatoliy V. Kharkhurin American University of Sharjah, UAE

Abstract

Key words

The study investigates whether bilingualism has a measurable contribution to verbal and nonverbal creative performance. The performance of Russian–English bilingual and English monolingual college students residing in the USA was compared on the verbal and nonverbal indicators of the Abbreviated Torrance Test for Adults. The results demonstrated a bilingual advantage in nonverbal creativity and a monolingual advantage in verbal creativity. These findings contribute to the discussion of domain specificity of bilingual cognitive abilities with regard to creative thinking.

bilingualism creativity language skills nonverbal verbal

Bilingual verbal and nonverbal creative behavior The realities of the modern world have a conspicuous impact on the scientific community. Vastly increased human mobility, communication technology, and the accelerating integration of the world economy abolish geographic boundaries and bring together people from different cultural and linguistic backgrounds. The close interaction of people speaking different languages emphasizes the phenomenon of multilingualism as never before. The scientific research reflects these tendencies and provides a growing body of empirical investigation on the phenomenon of multilingualism. One of the widely discussed topics in research on multilingualism comes from the pedagogical considerations of how to raise bilingual children (e.g. Burck, 2005; King & Fogle, 2006; see August & Shanahan, 2006 for an overview), and possible consequences of bilingual development (see Bialystok, 2005, 2009; Nicoladis, 2008, for an overview). In this regard, several questions concerning the linguistic and cognitive consequences of bilingualism have been raised. Does bilingualism delay or accelerate language development? Does the possession of two languages hinder or facilitate the

Address for correspondence

Anatoliy V. Kharkhurin, PhD, Department of International Studies, American University of Sharjah, P Box 26666, Sharjah, UAE. [email: [email protected]] Acknowledgments

I thank Jeanette Altarriba for her very helpful comments on an earlier version of this work. The article has also benefited greatly from suggestions made by two anonymous reviewers. The International Journal of Bilingualism Copyright © 2010 the Author/s 2010, ISSN; Vol 14 (2): 211–226; ID no 363060; DOI; 10.1177/1367006910363060 http://Ijb.sagepub.com Downloaded from http://ijb.sagepub.com at American Univ. of Sharjah on June 14, 2010

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effectiveness of linguistic and thinking processes? Do bilinguals, operating in two linguistic systems, have more or fewer linguistic and cognitive advantages? The opinions on these questions were divided as a growing body of empirical data provides support for both bilingual advantages and disadvantages. On one side, it is shown that bilingual development causes a deficiency in the processing of first (L1) and second (L2) languages (e.g. Cook, 1990; Gollan, Montoya, & Werner, 2002; Ivanova & Costa, 2008; Mägiste, 1992; Rosselli et al., 2000). On the other side, speaking two languages is shown to extend rather than to diminish an individual’s capabilities, which is also supported by a growing number of empirical studies (e.g. Bialystok, Craik, & Luk, 2008b; Hakuta & Diaz, 1985; Peal & Lambert, 1962; Ricciardelli, 1992a). An interesting tendency observed in this discussion is that the aforementioned studies showing bilinguals’ disadvantages focus on their verbal abilities, whereas the ones supporting the opposite perspective emphasize bilinguals’ greater performance on nonverbal cognitive tasks. The present study elaborates on this tendency with regards to a specific cognitive skill, creativity. It tests three hypotheses: (1) bilingualism negatively affects an individual’s skills in both languages, (2) limited linguistic skills of bilinguals may impair their creative performance on the tasks presented in verbal context, and (3) if the task is presented in nonverbal context, bilinguals may show greater creative performance than monolinguals. The following sections present a discussion that leads to the formulation of these hypotheses. Language groups’ performance on linguistic tasks

The first hypothesis is derived from empirical evidence demonstrating a bilingual disadvantage on linguistic tasks, in particular language production tests. Oller and Eilers (2002) reported vocabulary deficits in fluent bilingual children. Researchers of the tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon in different languages (e.g. Gollan, Montoya, & Bonanni, 2005; Gollan & Silverberg, 2001) revealed a tendency of bilinguals to produce more tip-of-the-tongue states than monolinguals even when tested in their dominant language exclusively (Gollan & Acenas, 2004). Further, the reduced scores on letter and category fluency tests were found for both college-age bilinguals and older bilingual adults (Gollan et al., 2002; Rosselli et al., 2000). More relevant to the language task used in the present study, Kohnert, Hernandez, and Bates (1998) found that bilinguals scored below the monolingual norms on the Boston Naming task in both their languages. This finding was confirmed by Roberts, Garcia, Desrochers, and Hernandez (2002) who found that bilinguals produce more errors in picture naming than monolinguals. Moreover, Gollan, Montoya, Fennema-Notestine, and Morris (2005) reported that bilingual adults require more time to name a picture than their monolingual counterparts. In line with the reviewed research, the present study hypothesizes that bilingualism has a negative impact on an individual’s linguistic abilities even in their dominant language. Language groups’ performance on verbal cognitive tasks

The second hypothesis is based on research demonstrating that bilinguals’ limited linguistic skills seem to have an impact on their performance in other cognitive domains as well. For example, Frenck-Mestre and Vaid (1993) found that bilinguals verified simple arithmetic problems most quickly and accurately when the problems were presented as digits, slower when presented in word format in their L1, and slower again in their The International Journal of Bilingualism

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L2. They concluded that arithmetic ability is compromised for bilinguals in their L2. However, the fact that bilinguals in this study were late language learners with a lower proficiency in their L2 than in their L1 suggests that this effect can be attributed to their linguistic abilities rather than to mathematical ones. Indeed, Morales, Shute, and Pellegrino (1985) found that when the problem was presented in a dominant language, both bilinguals and monolinguals showed similar performance on problem-solving tasks. At the same time, there is a meaningful argument that the processing of two languages may increase demands on the cognitive system, thereby decreasing bilinguals’ performance on problem-solving tasks (e.g. Ellis, 1992). All these findings provide mixed results, but there is at least one apparent conclusion: although bilingualism per se does not impair individuals’ problem solving, the linguistic context of the problem may impose certain limitations on the cognitive system, thereby interfering with their performance (Bialystok, 2005). In other words, framing a nonverbal problem in a verbal context may require additional cognitive efforts, which cause deficiency in bilingual problem solving. The present study focuses on bilinguals’ creativity. By analogy with the reviewed studies, it hypothesizes that framing a creative problem in a verbal context would result in bilinguals’ lower creative performance. Language groups’ performance on nonverbal cognitive tasks

The third hypothesis is derived from research in bilingual cognitive development providing evidence that bilingualism extends rather than diminishes an individual’s cognitive capacities. Specifically, bilinguals were found to outperform their monolingual counterparts on the nonverbal tasks requiring control processes such as selective attention to relevant aspects of a problem, inhibition of attention to misleading information, and switching between competing alternatives (see Bialystok, 2005, 2009 for an overview). Bilingual children tended to solve problems that contain conflicting or misleading cues at an earlier age than monolinguals (Bialystok & Martin, 2004). They were also better at identifying the alternative image in reversible figures (Bialystok & Shapero, 2005). Moreover, the studies with older bilinguals show that this cognitive advantage persists into adulthood. Bilingual young adults needed less time than their monolingual counterparts to resolve the conflict between the target stimulus and the to-be-ignored flanker information (e.g. Costa, Hernandez, & Sebastián-Gallés, 2008). Bilingual older adults demonstrated the offset of age-related losses in executive processes (e.g. Bialystok, Craik, & Luk, 2008a). These benefits were explained by bilinguals’ extensive practice with two active language systems during which they constantly have to focus on one language, inhibit another language, or switch between the languages (Bialystok et al., 2005). It was argued that because of such cross-linguistic practice, bilinguals exercise crucial cognitive skills that enhance the problem-solving abilities that require attention control to ignore or inhibit misleading cues (Bialystok, 2001). Moreover, Bialystok and Feng (2009) suggest that bilinguals’ greater executive control may compensate for weaker linguistic skills and allow them to show equal or greater performance than monolinguals on the tasks involving a verbal component (such as proactive interference task). The present study extrapolates the findings of bilingual cognitive advantage to the domain of creativity and hypothesizes that bilingualism would facilitate nonverbal creative abilities. The International Journal of Bilingualism


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Summarizing the reviewed studies, speaking two languages seems to be a doubleedged sword. On the one hand, bilinguals show a lower proficiency in their languages compared to their monolingual counterparts. Bilinguals’ relatively lower language skills seem to impede their performance on linguistic tasks as well as on tasks of cognitive abilities if they are presented in the verbal context. On the other hand, bilinguals demonstrate greater performance on nonverbal cognitive tasks involving executive control and inhibition of irrelevant information. Language groups’ performance on divergent thinking tasks

The reviewed studies suggest that bilingualism tends to hamper verbal and to facilitate nonverbal cognitive performance. The present study extends these findings by looking into the possible role of bilingualism in verbal and nonverbal creative performance. If bilinguals suffer from a limited access to their languages, their performance on verbal creativity tasks should also be poorer than for monolinguals. At the same time, if they benefit from the functioning of certain mechanisms that facilitate their performance on nonverbal tasks, their performance on the nonverbal creativity tasks should be better. In the psychometric tradition, creative thinking is perceived as an ability to initiate multiple cycles of divergent and convergent thinking (Guilford, 1967), which creates an active, attention-demanding process that allows the generation of new, alternative solutions (Mumford, Mobley, Uhlman, Reiter-Palmon, & Doares, 1991). The fundamental difference between these two processes is that convergent thinking is a conscious, attention demanding process, whereas divergent thinking occurs in the unconscious mind, where attention is defocused (e.g. Kasof, 1997; Mendelsohn, 1976) and thought is associative (e.g. Koestler, 1964; Mednick & Mednick, 1967; Ward, Smith, & Vaid, 1997). Divergent thinking involves a broad search for information and the generation of numerous novel alternative answers or solutions to a problem (Guilford, 1967). Guilford associated the properties of divergent thinking with four main characteristics: fluency (the ability to rapidly produce a large number of ideas or solutions to a problem); flexibility (the capacity to consider a variety of approaches to a problem simultaneously); elaboration (the ability to think through the details of an idea and carry it out); and originality (the tendency to produce ideas different from those of most other people). The aforementioned studies (Gollan et al., 2002; Rosselli et al., 2000), employing a verbal fluency task (generation of as many exemplars as possible of a given category), hint to the possibility that bilinguals may show poorer divergent thinking performance in the verbal domain than monolinguals. These studies provide evidence that monolinguals obtain greater verbal fluency scores than bilinguals (at least clearly in the semantic categories). As mentioned earlier, fluency constitutes an important characteristic of divergent thinking and bilinguals’ poorer performance on this task suggests the limitations in their verbal creative abilities. However, Ricciardelli (1992b) has reviewed 24 studies investigating the influence of bilingualism on creative abilities and reported highly mixed results with respect to bilinguals’ and monolinguals’ performance on verbal and nonverbal divergent thinking tests. Specifically, two studies demonstrated monolinguals’ superiority on nonverbal divergent thinking tasks, 14 – bilinguals’ superiority on verbal and 12 – on nonverbal divergent thinking tasks, and one study showed no performance differences. These studies tend to demonstrate greater creative abilities of bilinguals in both verbal and nonverbal domains and therefore contradict the findings in noncreative The International Journal of Bilingualism



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cognitive domains. A possible explanation for this discrepancy could be grounded in the nature of the processes assessed in these studies. Both verbal and nonverbal cognitive tasks mentioned earlier seem to assess an individual’s conscious processes, whereas divergent thinking tasks are likely to assess unconscious processes. Moreover, most of the studies reported by Ricciardelli were conducted with children and suffered from the lack of control over various factors in bilingual development (Kharkhurin, 2008). The goal of the present study is to investigate the influence of bilingualism on verbal and nonverbal creative abilities in college students, providing a careful control over their linguistic skills and their language dominance. In line with the research in bilingual language production, the study hypothesizes that bilinguals show poorer performance on production tests in both languages compared with monolinguals. In line with the research in bilingual verbal and nonverbal cognitive abilities, the study hypothesizes that bilinguals show better performance on nonverbal creativity tests and poorer performance on verbal creativity tests compared with monolinguals.

Method Participants

Participants in this study were the same as in Kharkhurin (2008). They were Brooklyn College (USA) psychology students who participated for course credit. A total of 103 immigrants from the former Soviet Union who speak both Russian and English (25 male and 78 female) between 16 and 39 years of age (M = 21.57, SD = 4.63) were selected for the bilingual group. Of these, 101 were born in the former Soviet Union, had immigrated to the USA at different ages (M = 13.57, SD = 6.86), and had resided in the USA for different time intervals (M = 8.08, SD = 4.93); two participants were born in the USA. However, all bilingual participants indicated on the background questionnaire that they had acquired Russian as their L1 and English as their L2 at different ages (M = 9.27, SD = 3.96). Bilingual participants also revealed that on average they use Russian at home 69.17 per cent of the time (SD = 25.35%) and English 29.19 per cent ot the time (SD = 25.19%), whereas with friends they use Russian 42.57 per cent of the time (SD = 25.13%) and English 56.63 per cent (SD = 25.40%). Finally, they indicated different patterns of educational history with average length of study in Russia 6.35 years (SD = 5.13) and in the USA 4.77 years (SD = 2.84). In addition, 47 native monolingual English speakers (18 male and 29 female) between 16 and 51 years of age (M = 23.45, SD = 8.96) were selected for the monolingual group. The detailed discussion of the participants’ background and selection criteria is presented in Kharkhurin (2008). Materials and procedure Biographical questionnaire

A biographical questionnaire (developed by Kharkhurin, 2005, see Kharkhurin, 2008) was administered to determine participants’ linguistic, cultural, and educational backgrounds. Bilinguals received a questionnaire used to obtain data on each participant’s place of origin, age of immigration to the USA, length of residence in the USA, age of acquisition of Russian and English, and the length and level of education obtained in Russia and the USA. The International Journal of Bilingualism


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Picture naming test

Further, participants were given a test of productive vocabulary, the picture naming test (PNT). Vocabulary knowledge was assessed by the accuracy of the participants’ responses to 120 pictures of simple objects (see Kharkhurin, 2008, for a detailed discussion of the test). Each response was scored either 1 or 0, so that the maximum number of points for picture naming in either language was 120. The divergent thinking test

After administering the background questionnaire and the PNT, participants were given a standard divergent thinking test, the Abbreviated Torrance Test for Adults (ATTA, Goff & Torrance, 2002). The standard ATTA has three paper and pencil activities preceded by written instructions that explain general guidelines and encourages participants to use their imagination and thinking abilities. At the beginning of the test, participants were asked what language they preferred to take the test in. In response to their preference, instructions were given either in English or in Russian. The English version of the instructions was taken directly from the original ATTA, whereas the Russian translation was produced by the author, a native speaker of Russian. Participants were encouraged to give verbal answers in the language in which they felt more comfortable. In the problem identification task (Activity 1), participants were asked to suppose that they could walk on air or fly without being in an airplane or a similar vehicle, and then to identify the troubles they might encounter. In the picture completion task (Activity 2), participants were presented with two incomplete figures and were asked to draw as many pictures as possible with these figures. In the picture construction task (Activity 3), participants were presented with a group of nine triangles arranged in a 3×3 matrix and were asked to draw as many pictures or objects as they could using the triangles. Two independent raters who were bilingual in Russian and English then assessed the participants’ verbal and nonverbal creative abilities. Five verbal and ten nonverbal criterion-referenced creativity indicators were identified using the standard ATTA assessment procedure (Goff & Torrance, 2002, see Table 1). The verbal criterionreferenced creativity indicators were obtained from Activity 1, and the nonverbal ones were obtained from Activities 2 and 3. Each of these 15 indicators was given a rating of 0 if the indicator does not occur, 1 if the indicator appears once, or 2 if the indicator appears more than once. The total verbal creativity index was computed as a sum of five verbal criterion-referenced creativity indicators; the total nonverbal creativity index was computed as a sum of 10 nonverbal criterion-referenced creativity indicators. The inter-rater significant correlations between the indexes produced by both raters (r = .60, p < .05 for the verbal creativity index, and r = .68, p < .01 for the nonverbal creativity index, respectively) indicated that the raters used the same rationale and their ratings were comparable.

Results and discussion Bilinguals’ and monolinguals’ vocabulary knowledge

The first goal of the study was to test the hypothesis that bilinguals show poorer linguistic abilities than monolinguals. The PNT was administered to determine participants’ vocabulary knowledge and thereby compare the linguistic skills of bilingual and The International Journal of Bilingualism


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Table 1 Fifteen criterion-referenced creativity indicators identified by the ATTA procedure

Verbal responses

Nonverbal responses

Richness and colorfulness of imagery Expressions of feelings and emotions Future orientation Humor: conceptual incongruity Provocative questions

Richness and colorfulness of imagery Expressions of feelings and emotions Openness: resistance to premature closure Unusual visualization, different perspective Movement and/or sound Abstractness of titles Context: environment for object, articulateness in telling story Combination/synthesis of two or more figures Internal visual perspective Fantasy

Table 2 Participants’ mean (with standard deviation in parentheses) performance on the picture naming test

English (L2) Russian (L1) Dominant language (LD) Language of ATTA Instructions (LI) LI=LD LI=non-LD

Bilingual

Monolingual

91.19 (16.47) 84.89 (24.76) 102.17 (11.14) 98.88 (15.08) 103.31 (10.68) 83.48 (18.05)

110.66 (7.91)

monolingual groups. Table 2 presents language groups’ mean performance on this test. Bilinguals’ performance on either Russian or English PNT (first two rows of Table 2) was found significantly lower than the one of the monolingual participants on the English PNT (both ps < .001). These findings indicate that monolinguals showed greater mastery of their vocabulary compared to their bilingual counterparts. At the same time, although all bilingual participants indicated that Russian was their L1, only half of them revealed higher PNT score in this language (out of 103 participants 51 showed higher performance on the Russian PNT, 51 on the English PNT, and one participant scored equal on the PNT in both languages). These findings suggest that different participants had different dominant languages. Therefore, to make a more adequate comparison of two language groups, dominant language was determined for each bilingual participant as the one having a higher PNT score (either English or Russian). The PNT performance on dominant language correlated similarly with both English and Russian PNT scores (r = .46 and r = .40, respectively, both ps < .001) and produced significantly higher mean score (third row of Table 2) than on both of these languages (∆M = 10.97, t = 7.40 for English and ∆M = 17.27, t = 7.72 for Russian, both ps < .001). However, bilinguals’ PNT score on dominant language was still significantly lower than monolinguals’ PNT score on English (∆M = –8.50, t = –4.71, p < .001). This finding provides support for the hypothesis that bilinguals’ linguistic performance in their dominant language is still poorer than the monolinguals’ one. The International Journal of Bilingualism



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Figure 1 Participants’ mean verbal (a) and nonverbal (b) creativity index as a function of a language group (a)

(b) 8 Nonverbal Creativity Index

Verbal Creativity Index

4

3

2

1

Bilingual

Monolingual

Language Group

6

4

2

Bilingual

Monolingual

Language Group

Language groups’ performance on the ATTA overall verbal and nonverbal criteria

The second goal of the study was to compare bilinguals’ and monolinguals’ verbal and nonverbal creative abilities. As illustrated by Figure 1, bilinguals obtained significantly lower scores on the verbal creativity index (F(1, 149) = 7.41, p < .01) and significantly higher scores on the nonverbal creativity index (F(1, 149) = 18.62, p < .001) as compared to monolinguals. As discussed earlier, bilingual linguistic disadvantage may have an impact on the performance in cognitive domains and therefore influence bilingual creative performance. Note that to ensure an adequate understanding of the test instructions, English or Russian versions of the ATTA were administered to bilingual participants upon their request. However, as a subsequent analysis indicates, not all participants took the test in their dominant language. Out of 103 bilingual participants, 79 took the ATTA in their dominant language (76.70%, 46 in English and 33 in Russian), 23 participants took the test in their non-dominant language (22.33%, 18 took the ATTA in English whereas Russian was their dominant language, and 5 vice versa), and one participant took the ATTA in Russian, and she had equally high PNT scores (101 out of 120) in both languages; the difference was significant (χ2(1, N = 102) = 32.88, p < .001). Therefore, a potential effect of the language of the ATTA instructions was taken into account. As bilinguals revealed significantly lower vocabulary knowledge than monolinguals in the language of the ATTA instructions (fourth row of Table 2; ∆M = –11.78, t = –5.04, p < .001)1, and the PNT score on this language significantly and positively correlated 1

Note that bilingual participants who took the ATTA either in their dominant language (5th row of Table 2) or in their non-dominant language (6th row of Table 2) obtained lower PNT scores on this language compared to the English PNT scores of monolingual participants (∆M = –7.35, t = –4.10; and ∆M = –27.18, t = –8.79, respectively, both ps < .001). The International Journal of Bilingualism



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with the verbal creativity index (r = .23, p < .01), ANCOVAs were performed on language group (bilingual, monolingual) as an independent factor, PNT score on language of the ATTA instructions as a covariate, and the verbal and nonverbal creativity indexes as dependent variables, respectively. The analyses revealed that both effects remained significant after controlling for the effect of the vocabulary knowledge in the language of the ATTA instructions (F(1, 147) = 12.07, p < .01, R 2 = .12, adjusted-R 2 = .11, for the verbal creativity index, and F(1, 147) = 10.86, p < .01, R 2 = .07, adjusted-R 2=.06, for the nonverbal creativity index, respectively). The effects remained also when the monolingual group was separately compared with the groups of bilingual participants who took the ATTA in their dominant and non-dominant language, respectively. Altogether, these findings reveal a clear pattern of performance differences between bilingual and monolingual groups: bilinguals show greater nonverbal creative performance, whereas monolinguals show greater verbal one. Language groups’ performance on the ATTA specific verbal and nonverbal criteria

Bilingual and monolingual participants were compared on each of the 15 criterionreferenced creativity indicators. The monolingual group obtained significantly higher scores compared with the bilingual group on verbal indicators of richness and colorfulness of imagery (F(1, 148) = 13.58, p < .001) and future orientation (F(1, 148) = 9.91, p < .01). In turn, the bilingual group obtained significantly higher scores on the nonverbal indicators of richness and colorfulness of imagery (F(1, 148) = 23.61, p < .001) and resistance to premature closure (F(1, 148) = 9.29, p < .01). A detailed discussion of these findings is presented later. Bilingual developmental factors on the ATTA overall verbal and nonverbal criteria

The previous study with the same set of data (Kharkhurin, 2008) showed an interplay of three factors in bilingual/bicultural development: two language related factors (language proficiency assessed by PNT scores in English and Russian, and age of the onset of L2 learning), and one culture related factor (the rate of exposure to the new cultural settings assessed by the age of arrival and the length of residence in the USA). These factors were also found to correlate with three out of four norm-referenced ATTA measures (fluency, flexibility, and elaboration; see Goff & Torrance, 2002). Therefore, to test a potential relationship of these three factors and verbal and nonverbal creative performance, a set of partial correlational analyses with the bilingual group was replicated. In these analyses, the relationship of each of the developmental variables and the verbal and nonverbal creativity indexes was tested by systematically partialling out the effect of other variables in the set. The age of L2 learning was found to negatively correlate with the nonverbal creativity index (r = –.23, p < .05); both PNT scores in English and Russian positively correlated with the nonverbal creativity index (r = .23, p < .05, and r = .32, p < .01, respectively); length of residence in the USA negatively correlated with the nonverbal creativity index (r = –.20, p < .05); and age of arrival to the USA positively correlated with the verbal creativity index (r = .22, p < .05). Rather low (although significant) correlational values suggest that to some extent both the bilingual and bicultural experiences may relate to verbal and nonverbal creativity, and it is not feasible to disentangle the effects of bilingualism and biculturalism at this point. The International Journal of Bilingualism


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General discussion Bilingual and monolingual students completed a test measuring verbal and nonverbal creative abilities and a productive vocabulary test. The results showed significant differences in both creative and linguistic performances of bilingual and monolingual groups. Monolingual participants performed better on the productive vocabulary test and verbal creativity indicators, whereas bilingual participants showed greater performance on nonverbal creativity indicators. These results are discussed in terms of the domain specificity of creative performance, and language production in both bilinguals and monolinguals. Bilingual and monolingual creative performance

The results obtained from the creativity test revealed a consistent pattern of performance differences between language groups. Bilinguals showed higher performance in nonverbal creativity, whereas monolinguals showed higher performance in verbal creativity. These results are consistent with the studies in language production showing monolingual advantages in the fluency tasks (Bialystok et al., 2008a; Gollan et al., 2002; Rosselli et al., 2000). For example, Bialystok, Craik, and Luk showed monolingual advantages on both letter (produce as many words as possible that started with a given letter within one minute) and category (name as many animals as possible within one minute) fluency tasks. These tasks tap into the ability to rapidly produce a large number of solutions to a problem, which is considered an important trait of divergent thinking (Guilford, 1967). Monolinguals’ creative performance in the verbal domain may benefit from their greater linguistic skills. Creative problem solving that takes place in the linguistic context might be enriched by greater ability to manipulate with linguistic units. On the other hand, as discussed earlier, bilinguals’ limited linguistic skills may cause a deficiency in their creative problem solving if a task is framed in a verbal context (Bialystok, 2005). At the same time, as the results of the present study show, when the problem was presented in a nonverbal context, bilinguals demonstrated greater creative performance. Specifically, they outperformed their monolingual counterparts on an important indicator of creativity such as resistance to premature closure. Goff and Torrance specify this trait as follows: ‘The creative person is able to keep open and delay closure long enough to make the mental leap that makes possible original ideas. Less creative persons tend to leap to conclusions prematurely’ (2002: 16). This advantage of bilinguals may arise from routine ambiguity inherent to their multilingual practice, in which the same basic idea may have different nuances in different languages (Lubart, 1999). This tolerance for ambiguity in turn may facilitate their ability to keep a pool of possible solutions open long enough to generate a creative idea. On the other hand, inability to evaluate multiple solutions simultaneously and a tendency to leap to the most obvious solution prevents an individual from showing great creative performance (Kharkhurin & Samadpour Motalleebi, 2008). Kharkhurin and Samadpour Motalleebi demonstrated that Iranian college students produced fewer responses in the ATTA Activity 1 than their counterparts from Russia and the USA, and that the fluency scores (assessed by the standard ATTA procedure, Goff & Torrance, 2002) of Iranian students were significantly lower than the norm average. They explained these findings by the inability of Iranian participants to generate several solutions to a problem, which stems from specific aspects of the Iranian The International Journal of Bilingualism



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sociocultural environment encouraging them to avoid ambiguous questions and to pursue a route that leads more directly to concrete answers (Zandpour & Sadri, 1996). A remarkable difference in the performance of bilinguals and monolinguals was obtained on the richness and colorfulness of imagery. Monolinguals scored higher on this indicator in the verbal domain, whereas bilinguals obtained higher scores in the nonverbal domain. This trait is considered an important indicator of creativity (Goff & Torrance, 2002), with richness addressing variety, vividness, liveliness, and intensity of imagery, and colorfulness addressing the appeal to the senses of touch, smell, and sight. Again, a monolingual advantage on the verbal indicator could result from a larger lexicon available to express possible solutions to a problem. However, when the restraints of the linguistic context were removed, bilinguals showed greater performance. A speculative explanation of this finding is rooted in bilinguals’ experience with different linguistic and cultural frameworks, which allows them to perceive the world through the amalgam of different conceptual prisms and view events with a wider range of enriched experiences (e.g. Kharkhurin, 2008, in press). In turn, non-standard perspectives may promote novel and creative ways of problem solving. Is it bilingual or bicultural creative performance?

This last remark hints to an equally sound alternative to the interpretation of the outcomes of the present study. This study, as well as many other studies in bilingualism research, is conducted with immigrants. These individuals have acquired each of their languages in the respective cultural environment where different cultural cues were available (Pavlenko, 2000). For example, most of the Russian–English bilingual participants in the present study have acquired their L1 (Russian) while living in Russia, and their L2 (English) after immigrating to the USA. Kharkhurin (2008) argues that L2 learning is often accompanied by the adoption of new cultural values, which in turn may result in conceptual changes in bilingual memory, and subsequently, in an increase in creative abilities. In other words, bilingual creative advantage found in the present study may be attributed not to the bilingual experience per se, but to the experience with bicultural values obtained in parallel with language learning. It is not the experience with two language systems, but the experience with two systems of cultural meanings that may have an impact on the cognitive functioning of bilinguals and may result in cognitive flexibility and enhanced creative potential. Both historiometric and psychometric research (see Leung, Maddux, Galinsky, & Chiu, 2008; Simonton, 2008, for an overview) provides evidence supporting this notion by demonstrating that multiculturalism may serve as an important contributor to creative performance of individuals even beyond the effect of multilingualism. The findings of the present study do not solve this dichotomy as they provide mixed results of the relationship between participants’ experience with two languages, two cultures and verbal and nonverbal creativity. A more controlled study that disentangles the effects of bilingual and bicultural experiences is required. For example, a comparison of Russian monolinguals with Russian–English bilinguals who learned L2 (English) in a decontextualized environment (e.g. in a classroom setting) where no L2 cultural cues were available would provide an opportunity to control for the factor of cross-cultural experience and thereby to study the effect of bilingualism above and beyond the effect of biculturalism. However, even this study design may not be adequate as L2 learning in the classroom may still involve the acquisition of L2 cultural knowledge inherent to books, music, and other culture specific materials. The International Journal of Bilingualism


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Another approach would be to develop a solid methodology assessing the cognitive implications of biculturalism. The existing measures of multicultural experience (e.g. age and length of exposure to different cultural settings as in Kharkhurin, 2008 and this present study; multicultural experience survey as in Leung & Chiu, 2008) tend to reduce the psychological effects of experience with multiple cultures to measures of the exposure to a cultural environment. However, as Tropp, Erkut, Coll, Alarcon, and Garcia (1999) argue, mere cultural exposure does not necessarily reflect the psychological ramifications of that experience. Therefore, there is a need for a reliable measure of cognitive processes that are influenced by cross-cultural experiences and which accounts for variations in an individual’s cognitive capacities. Further, since the mean age of bilinguals’ arrival in the USA is about 13 years old, it is likely that bilingual and monolingual groups in the present study were educated differently up to that age. In this case, the effect of bilingualism can be attributed to the effect of cultural environment of early education. Although the study supplies no control over this factor, it provides indirect argument against this notion. If the schooling in different sociocultural environments would have an effect on creative potential, bilinguals with different educational histories would show different creative performance. However, Kharkhurin (2008) argues that creative performance differences stem not from differences in educational histories, but from an individual’s early age of L2 learning. He found that earlier L2 learners had less schooling in a Russian-speaking environment. At the same time, the same individuals in the present study were found to show greater nonverbal creative performance. Moreover, there was found no significant relationship between the length of schooling in the USA or Russia and verbal or nonverbal creative potential. These findings question the effect of the Russian educational context per se and support the interpretation that the performance differences between bilinguals and monolinguals can be ascribed to the effect of bilingualism, in this case, to the effect of the age of L2 learning. The monolingual advantage in language production

The results obtained from the productive vocabulary test showed a monolingual advantage, confirming the findings reported in the studies of lexical access and language production. At least two explanations can be put forward to account for these findings. The first one stems from the differences between bilinguals and monolinguals in the frequency of usage of their languages (Gollan, Montoya, Cera, & Sandoval, 2008; Gollan, Montoya, Fennema-Notestine et al., 2005). It assumes that bilinguals regularly use both of their languages and therefore activate the linguistic units of each of them relatively less often than do monolinguals with their single language. The relatively less frequent use of the language may hamper bilinguals’ lexical access (see Bialystok et al., 2008a; Mägiste, 1979; Ransdell & Fischler, 1987). However, if the frequency effect determines performance in a given language, why did those bilinguals in the present study who have a higher word frequency in their dominant language2 still show lower vocabulary knowledge even when tested in this language? This finding confirms the ones reported in a number of studies in lexical access in speech production (e.g. Gollan & Acenas, 2

This assumption is made based on a subsequent analysis of the relative frequency of language use combined for the context of home and friends. It shows that bilinguals whose dominant language is English use it more frequently than Russian (∆M = 10.20%, t = 1.71, p = .09), and those whose dominant language is Russian use it more frequently than English (∆M = 35.78%, t = 8.78, p < .001). The International Journal of Bilingualism



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2004; Gollan, Montoya, & Bonanni, 2005; Gollan, Montoya, Fennema-Notestine et al., 2005; Ivanova & Costa, 2008). The second explanation addresses this issue by proposing that bilingual lexical access may be hampered by cross-language interference. This idea stems from the findings showing that both languages become activated during bilingual language processing (e.g. Costa, 2005; de Groot, Delmaar, & Lupker, 2000; Dijkstra, Grainger, & van Heuven, 1999; Green, 1998; Hermans, Bongaerts, de Bot, & Schreuder, 1998; Jared & Kroll, 2001; van Hell & Dijkstra, 2002). According to this approach, when bilinguals use their dominant language, the linguistic units of the weaker language are still active and interfere with the target ones, thereby slowing down the lexical access in the dominant language. The same conclusion was made in the cross-language Stroop works showing interference effect (e.g. Altarriba & Mathis, 1997). Both explanations seem to be plausible when the specificity of the PNT procedure used in the present study is taken into account. This test requires participants to write down the names for the pictures within the limited time interval. Compared to monolinguals, relatively less frequent practice with both written languages may hamper bilinguals’ ability to provide the labels for the pictures in the allotted time. At the same time, the cross-language interference effect may also prevent them from efficiently retrieving the words in a target language. Bialystok and her colleagues (2008a) also claim that this effect is salient in productive vocabulary tests requiring lexical retrieval (they used the Boston naming test), but not in the receptive vocabulary tests (such as the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test used in their study), in which ‘a word is provided and the participant simply chooses the picture that depicts the word, so there is no lexical competition and no time pressure to select the correct alternative’ (2008a: 868). However, in contrast to this claim, they found a bilingual disadvantage on the receptive vocabulary test, which cannot be accounted for by the interference effect. At the same time, a frequency effect seems to be a plausible explanation for this finding, for to select an appropriate picture for a given word, a participant has to retrieve its lexical entry. In this case, lexical access may be hindered due to a less frequent word usage.

Conclusion In conclusion, the findings of the present study contribute to the discussion of domain specificity of bilinguals’ cognitive abilities. The studies utilizing various linguistic and cognitive tasks show that bilingualism facilitates nonverbal performance and impedes verbal performance. The present study demonstrates a similar pattern for creative performance: speaking more than one language increases creativity in the nonverbal domain and decreases it in the verbal one. However, this study is just an initiation into the realm of bilingual creative potential, which definitely requires the follow-up research providing more elaborate control of the multilingual and multicultural factors in an individual’s development.

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