Abstract：
There is evidence suggesting that bilingual individuals demonstrate an advantage over monolinguals in performing various tasks related to memory and executive functions. The characteristics of this bilingual advantage are not unanimously agreed upon in the literature, and some even doubt it exists. The heterogeneity of the bilingual population may explain this inconsistency. Hence, it is important to identify different subgroups of bilinguals and characterize their cognitive performance. The current study focuses on the production effect, a well-established memory phenomenon, in bilingual young adults differing in their English and Hebrew proficiency levels, and the possible balanced bilingual advantage. The aims of this study are (1) to evaluate the production effect in three groups of bilingual participants: English-dominant bilinguals, Hebrew-dominant bilinguals, and balanced bilinguals, and (2) to examine whether memory advantage depends on varying degrees of bilingualism. One hundred twenty-one bilingual young adults who speak English and Hebrew at different levels participated. All learned lists of familiar words, in English and Hebrew, half by reading aloud and half by silent reading, followed by free recall tests. As expected, a production effect (better memory for aloud words than for silent words) was found for all groups in both languages. Balanced bilinguals remembered more words than did dominant participants, demonstrating a memory advantage in both languages. These findings support the hypothesis that the presence of cognitive advantage in bilingualism depends on the acquisition of a good proficiency level in each of the languages, with direct implications for family language policy and bilingual education.
摘要：
有证据表明，双语个体在执行与记忆和执行功能有关的各种任务方面比单语者更具优势。这种双语优势的特点在文献中并未得到一致认同,有些人甚至怀疑它的存在。双语人群的异质性可以解释这种不一致性。因此，识别双语者的不同亚组并表征他们的认知表现非常重要。目前的研究重点是生产效应，一种公认的记忆现象，在英语和希伯来语能力水平不同的双语年轻人中，以及可能的平衡双语优势。本研究的目的是（1）评估三组双语参与者的生产效果：英语占主导地位的双语者，希伯来语占主导地位的双语者，平衡的双语者，(2)检查记忆优势是否取决于不同程度的双语。一百二十一名讲英语和希伯来语的双语年轻人参加了会议。所有熟悉的单词列表，英语和希伯来语，一半是大声朗读，一半是无声朗读，其次是免费的召回测试。不出所料,在两种语言的所有组中都发现了产生效果（大声单词的记忆力比无声单词更好）。平衡的双语者比占主导地位的参与者记住更多的单词，展示了两种语言的记忆优势。这些发现支持以下假设：双语中认知优势的存在取决于每种语言的良好熟练程度的获得，对家庭语言政策和双语教育有直接影响。
