Two indices of bilingualism, crossover memories and codeswitching (CS), were explored in five groups of immigrant (English–Hebrew, Georgian–Hebrew Russian–Hebrew) and indigenous bilinguals (Arabic–Hebrew, Hebrew–English). Participants recalled memories in response to cue words and then were asked to report the language of retrieval and provide a more elaborate narrative. More memories were ‘same language’ memories, recalled in the language of the experimental session/cue word, but as many as 48 % of the memories were crossovers, i.e. memories reported in a language other than the language of the session/cue word. In an effort to examine the ecological validity of the self-reported language of the memories, the frequency of CS in the elaborated narratives was investigated. For the entire sample, more CS was found for self-reported crossover memories in L2 sessions. In a further analysis of CS in crossover memories, collapsed across L1 and L2 sessions, significant differences emerged between immigrants and indigenous bilinguals. Differences between immigrant and non-immigrant bilinguals are discussed in terms of the role of activation in crossover memories. © 2014, Springer Science+Business Media New York.

Indigenous minorities immigrants bilingualism codeswitching Crossover memories

male Emigrants and Immigrants Neuropsychological Tests Multilingualism Aged, 80 and over female very elderly Aged Mental Recall language physiology recall psychology human Humans migrant middle aged neuropsychological test