<div dir="ltr">Bilingualism and Cognitive Aging<br><br> Full Title: Bilingualism and Cognitive Aging <br> Short Title: BCA <br>
<br> Date: 28-Jan-2015 - 30-Jan-2015 <br> Location: Groningen, Netherlands <br> Contact Person: Merel Keijzer<br> Meeting Email: <a>< click here to access email > </a><br> Web Site: <a href="http://www.bilingualismandcognitiveaging2015.org">http://www.bilingualismandcognitiveaging2015.org</a> <br>
<br> Linguistic Field(s): Applied Linguistics; Cognitive Science; Neurolinguistics; Psycholinguistics<br><br> Call Deadline: 15-Sep-2014 <br><br> Meeting Description:<br><br>
Recent years have seen a host of studies on the topic of language and
cognitive control in bilingualism. Featuring prominently in this now
quite rich literature is the so-called cognitive control advantage; now
found in abundance are studies presenting converging (and diverging)
evidence that bilinguals outperform monolinguals on working memory
capacity and executive functioning tasks. What has been relatively
underresearched these past few years is how all of this pertains to
aging bilinguals. This caveat is counterintuitive, given that one of the
most notable findings that sparked the bulk of research into the
cognitive advantage of bilinguals was that older bilinguals do not
suffer as much from the age-related cognitive decline found in their
monolinguals peers – even to the extent that the onset of degenerate
diseases like dementia takes place 4 years later, on average, in
bilinguals (Bialystok et al., 2004). <br> <br>Perhaps now more than ever
is the time to unravel the details underlying cognitive aging in
bilinguals. Due to increased life expectancies and reduced birth rates,
developed countries now see large numbers of older adults (Alho, 2008).
As a result of international mobility, a substantial number of these
elderly populations are multilingual. When zooming in on bilingualism
and cognitive aging, it is important that the issue of language
proficiency in both languages is addressed, which has often been
overlooked in the past. Substantial individual variation is likely to
characterize different groups of migrants and truly balanced bilinguals
make up only a small proportion of the population of older bilinguals in
any given country. Moreover, most previous work on language and
cognitive aging in bilingual contexts has focused on early simultaneous
bilinguals, as opposed to late sequential bilinguals that make up the
bulk of migrant communities. In other words, it is important to detail
the language use patterns as well as language proficiency and,
crucially, language attrition patterns (both of the first and second
language) of these speakers as they age, as these processes may all
greatly impact on the cognitive and language control of individual
bilingual older adults. <br> <br>The main aim of this conference is to
bring together researchers working on bilingualism and aging, both those
applying behavioral and neuroimaging techniques to their data sets, and
who may come from different but related fields such as psychology,
linguistics or neuroscience. In a single-session format, key topics in
the exciting field of language and cognitive control in older bilinguals
are addressed and revisited to establish the current state-of-the-art
in this field. <br> <br>We are very lucky to have 5 leading, internationally renowned, plenary speakers headlining our event: <br> <br>Prof. Jubin Abutalebi – University Vita-Salute San Raffaele/ University of Hong Kong <br>
Prof. Thomas Bak – University of Edinburgh <br>Prof. Ellen Bialystok – York University <br>Prof. Kees de Bot – University of Groningen <br>Prof. Deborah Burke – Pomona College <br> <br>Organizing Committee: <br> <br>Dr. Merel Keijzer – University of Groningen <br>
Prof. Monika Schmid – University of Groningen / University of Essex <br>Prof. Mike Sharwood Smith – University of Edinburgh <br>Anna Pot MA<br><br> 2nd Call for Papers: <br> <br>Paper
and poster proposal submissions that address the conference theme are
welcomed from all fields related to the general topic of bilingualism
and cognitive aging, including linguistics, (cognitive) psychology, and
(cognitive) neuroscience. Subtopics within which contributions are
welcomed include, but are not limited to: <br> <br>- Language maintenance and attrition in aging bilinguals <br>- Language use and proficiency patterns in aging bilinguals and their influence on language and cognitive control <br>
- Neurological correlates of language and cognitive control in aging bilinguals <br>- The cognitive advantage in aging bilinguals <br>- Individual differences (in language and cognitive control) in aging bilinguals <br> <br>
Contributions
to the program can take the form of traditional paper presentations (20
minutes plus 10 minutes for questions/discussion) or poster
presentations (the meeting will prominently feature 2 poster sessions,
each 1,5 hours in length. In addition, Bilingualism: Language and
Cognition is generously offering a poster prize for the best poster of
the conference). All proposals are subjected to a blind-review process
and assessed on the basis of their relevance regarding the conference
theme, their quality and originality, and also the discussion they are
expected to generate. <br> <br>As the meeting is deliberately designed
as a single-session conference, please note that we can only accommodate
a limited number of paper presentations. Abstracts with a maximum word
length of 300 may be submitted to our email address of
bilingualismcognitiveaging<img src="http://linguistlist.org/images/address-marker.gif" align="absbottom"><a href="http://gmail.com">gmail.com</a>.
The deadline for submission is 15 September 2014. Please also indicate
whether you would like your proposal to be considered for a paper or a
poster presentation. Further details about the conference and submission
of proposals can be found on the conference website: <a href="http://www.bilingualismandcognitiveaging2015.org">www.bilingualismandcognitiveaging2015.org</a>. <br> <br>Important Dates: <br> <br>23 May 2014: Call for papers is issued <br>
15 August 2014: Second call for papers (reminder) is issued <br>15 September: Deadline for proposals (11.59 P.M. CET) <br>31 October 2014: Notification of acceptance <br>15 November 2014: Conference registration opens <br>
28-30 January 2015: Conference<br clear="all"><br>-- <br>**************************************<br>N.b.: Listing on the lgpolicy-list is merely intended as a service to its members<br>and implies neither approval, confirmation nor agreement by the owner or sponsor of the list as to the veracity of a message's contents. Members who disagree with a message are encouraged to post a rebuttal, and to write directly to the original sender of any offensive message. A copy of this may be forwarded to this list as well. (H. Schiffman, Moderator)<br>
<br>For more information about the lgpolicy-list, go to <a href="https://groups.sas.upenn.edu/mailman/">https://groups.sas.upenn.edu/mailman/</a><br>listinfo/lgpolicy-list<br>*******************************************
</div>