@inproceedings{01KHTXFN4WFP5GK38WT35J7HRD,
  abstract     = {{This research investigates whether the early acquisition of two phonological systems impacts the organisation of the left hemisphere (LH)-dominant ‘phonological mind’. We hypothesize that, tocope with demanding dual-language contexts during early language acquisition, bilingual individuals engage more resources from, and connectivity between, their two hemispheres, eventually leading to a rebalanced and less-lateralised phonological network. To explore this, the dichotic listening task - participants hear different syllables in each ear simultaneously and report what they hear best - is central in our approach. This task measures the LH dominance for phonology, indexed by more right ear syllables reports. Importantly, left ear report accuracy reflects how well left ear syllables (sent to the right hemisphere) are transferred to the LH for linguistic processing. We hypothesise that reduced laterality indexes (enhanced left ear reports in particular) will be associated with higher exposure to early bilingualism/dual-language contexts, consequence of the rebalance of hemispheric resources when dealing with complex phonological situations. Two complementary studies were conducted, one in Spanish-Basque early bilingual and Spanish monolingual adults (n=50/group), and one in Spanish-Basque early bilingual children assigned to two groups based on their exposure to dual-language contexts (high versus low exposure; n=30/group). Participants were tested on the same dichotic listening task, where the level of competition (difficulty) between dichotic syllables was manipulated. Overall, both bilingual adults and children highly exposed to dual-language contexts (compared to their peers) showed reduced laterality indexes on the most complex dichotic conditions. This suggests that, when faced with phonological complex tasks, individuals with an early exposure to complex dual-language contexts rebalance their phonological resources across hemispheres, possibly supported by enhanced interhemispheric connectivity. We propose that this reflects a compensatory mechanism that could also boost resilience to difficulties affecting the development of phonological and speech processing skills.}},
  author       = {{Lallier, Marie and Ershaid, Hadeel and Villalta Ramirez, Ines Almendra and Martin, Clara}},
  booktitle    = {{15th International Symposium on Bilingualism, Book of Abstracts}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  location     = {{Donostia - San Sebastián}},
  pages        = {{612--612}},
  title        = {{Early bilingualism induces the hemispheric rebalance of resources when processing complex phonological stimuli}},
  year         = {{2025}},
}