Native Language Shifts Across Sleep
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Transcript Native Language Shifts Across Sleep
Ariah Wong
Sleep talking (somniloquy)
the utterance of speech or sounds during sleep
without simultaneous subjective detailed awareness
of the event.
mumbled nonsense to coherent sentences
More frequent in children & teenagers
Associated with REM & NREM sleep
Study which language is used when healthy
bilingual individuals are sleep talking
Dominant bilinguals – use dominant
language to sleep talk
Balanced bilinguals – use?
Subjects
681 Children
336
males, 341 females, 4 unknown
Age 3-17 (mean age: 9.0)
3 bilingual schools in northern Spain
Languages: Spanish & Euskera
Procedure
Parents completed self-administered
questionnaire
was the 1st language learned by your child?
Does your child sleep talk? If yes, how frequent and
in what language?
What
Reliable answers
Skip
questions in doubt
Contact investigator to clarify any questions
383 of 680 subjects were sleep talking (56.3%)
Balanced bilinguals
Sleep talk in either language (no preference)
Dominant bilinguals
Mostly sleep talk in the dominant language
Less than 4% of dominant bilinguals sleep
talked in their non-dominant language
Language shift:
Due to emotional stress
Different language organization
Learn
languages early = same brain areas
Learn one language earlier, one later = different
brain areas
Strengths
Easy to read, organized
Good sample size & balance of genders
Limitations
No clear hypothesis
Basing study on parents’ opinions
No relation to specific brain structures
Frontal
& temporal cortex, basal ganglia?
Future research
Use video surveillance/recording system
Gender differences
Multilinguals (know 2+ languages)
Sleep is related to anatomical & physiological
structure of language
Narrower age range
American Academy of Sleep Medicine. (2001). The
international classification of sleep disorders: diagnostic
and coding manual. 157-159.
Arkin, AM. (1966). Sleep talking: a review. Journal of
nervous and mental disease, 143, 101-122.
Arkin, AM., Toth, MF., Baker, J., & Hastey, JM. (1970). The
frequency of sleep talking in the laboratory among chronic
sleeptalkers and good dream recallers. Journal of nervous
and mental disease, 151(9), 369-374
Pareja, JA., de Pablos, E., Caminero, AB., Millan, I., &
Dobato, JL. (1999). Native language shifts across sleepwake states in bilingual sleeptalkers. Sleep, 22(2), 243-247.