Bilingual long-term working memory: The effects of working memory loads onwriting quality and fluency

In Experiment 1. 42 multilinguals were able to maintain native language wri ting quality and fluency in the presence of unattended irrelevant speech wh ile maintaining a concurrent 6-digit memory load. In Experiment 2. 80 bilin guals reduced fluency during writing with the 6-digit load only. In previou s research, over 100 monolinguals of comparable verbal and nonverbal skills in three experiments reduced quality and fluency under both secondary task s (Ransdell. Levy. & Kellogg, 1996). The results are interpreted in terms o f a bilingual skill advantage in suppressing irrelevant information. Posses sing fluency in another language may confer long-term working memory benefi ts during dual-task language conditions for bilinguals and even more so for multilinguals.