The language dependent recall effect influences the number of items recalled in autobiographical memory reports

This study investigated the influence of the language dependent recall effect on the number of memory items recalled in bilingual adults' autobiographical memories. Thirty-nine Spanish-English bilinguals were randomly assigned to receive task instructions and write one childhood memory (before age 10) and one recent memory (from the last five years) in either Spanish (Bi-Sp) or English (Bi-Eng). Twenty English monolinguals served as a control group. Memory items were coded by calculating the proportion of nouns, verbs, and adjectives relative to the total word count. When recalling childhood memories, but not recent memories Bi-Sp participants were more likely to experience a match between encoding and retrieval linguistic contexts than Bi-Eng participants. Consequently, Bi-Sp participants recalled a significantly greater proportion of nouns than Bi-Eng participants. In contrast, there were no significant differences in recent memories. These findings suggest that match between encoding and retrieval linguistic contexts afford better retrieval than a mismatch.