Duke Psychology & Neuroscience

Publications of Makeba P Wilbourn

• Journal Articles

  • • Wilbourn, M.P. & Sims, J.P.
    • 2013.
    • Get by with a little help from a word: Multimodal input facilitates 26-month-olds' ability to learn symbolic gestures as labels.
    • Journal of Cognition and Development
    • .
  • • Robertson, S.R., Watamura, S.E., & Wilbourn, M.P.
    • 2012.
    • Attentional dynamics of infant visual foraging.
    • Proceedings of the National Academy of Science
    • 109:
    • 11460–11464
    • .
  • • Wilbourn, M.P., Kurtz, L.E., & Kalia, V.
    • 2011.
    • The Lexical Stroop Sort (LSS) task: A computerized task exploring the relationship between language and executive functioning in school-aged children.
    • Behavior Research Methods
    • .
  • • Wilbourn, M.P., Gottfried, A.W., & Kee, D.W.
    • 2011.
    • Consistency of hand preference during the early years: Long-term relationship to verbal intelligence and reading achievement in females.
    • Developmental Psychology
    • 47:
    • 931-942
    • .
  • • Wilbourn, M.P., & Kee, D.W.
    • 2010.
    • Henry the nurse is a doctor too: Implicitly examining children’s gender stereotype flexibility for male and female occupational roles.
    • Sex Roles
    • 62:
    • 670-683
    • .
  • • Wilbourn, M.P., & Casasola, M.
    • 2007.
    • Discriminating signs: Perceptual precursors to the acquisition of a visual-gestural language.
    • Infant Behavior and Development
    • 30:
    • 153-160
    • .
  • • Casasola, M., Wilbourn, M.P., & Yang, S.
    • 2006.
    • Can English-learning toddlers acquire and generalize a novel spatial word?.
    • First Language
    • 26:
    • 187-205
    • .
  • • Casasola, M., & Wilbourn, M.P.
    • 2004.
    • Fourteen-month-old infants form novel word-spatial relation associations.
    • Infancy
    • 6:
    • 385-396
    • .

• Chapters in Books

  • • Gottfried, A.W., Gottfried, A.E., Bathurst, K., Guerin, D.W., & Parramore, M.(2003)..
    • 2003.
    • Socioeconomic status in children’s development and family environment: Infancy through adolescence. In M. Bornstein & R. Bradley (Eds.).
    • .
  • • Hersberger, S., Marcoulides, G., & Parramore, M. (2002)..
    • 2002.
    • Introduction to structural equation modeling techniques. In Pugesek, B., Tomer, A., von Eye, A. (Eds.).
    • .

• Articles Submitted

  • • Wilbourn, M.P., & Casasola, M.
    • 2012.
    • Hand me a cue: Developmental changes in infants’ associative word learning abilities.
    • Developmental Psychology
    • .
  • • Kalia, V., Wilbourn, M.P., & Ghio, K.
    • 2012.
    • Age of second language acquisition and language proficiency interactively influence bilinguals’ cognition.
    • Bilingualism: Cognition & Language
    • .
  • • Kalia, V., & Wilbourn, M.P.
    • 2012.
    • Changing frames of reference: Language impacts cognition and memory in Indian bilinguals.
    • Journal of Cross Cultural Psychology
    • .

    Publication Description

    Although converging evidence suggests that bilinguals may be bicultural, questions remain about the mechanisms underlying the relationship between language, culture, and cognition. Some research shows that bilinguals possess dual cognitive frameworks, whereas others underscore the importance of the socio-cultural environment in which bilingualism emerges. By adapting a traditional switching paradigm, we explored differences within individuals in cultural processing and memory as a function of language. We examined the narratives of two groups of Indian bilinguals, Tamil bilinguals and Hindi bilinguals. Results revealed that language impacts code-switching, memory, and narrative differentially for Hindi and Tamil bilinguals. In terms of memory, Tamil bilinguals were more accurate in their recall than Hindi bilinguals. Furthermore, Hindi and Tamil bilinguals displayed evaluations differentially in their storytelling as means to convey their own perspectives. Hindi bilinguals used more intensifiers in Hindi than in English. Tamil bilinguals, however, provided moral evaluations only in their Tamil narratives. Thus, through our examination of a less studied bilingual population, we were able to demonstrate that bilinguals are bicultural and both dual cognitive frameworks and the socio-cultural practices influence bilingual language use and cognition.

• Other

  • • Kalia, V., Wilbourn, M.P, & Mitchell, C..
    • 2013.
    • Cultural differences in narratives and reading achievement in African American children..
    • Proceedings of the Boston University Conference on Language Development (BUCLD) 37
    • 37:
    • .

    Publication Description

    The goal of the current study was to examine the relationship between oral language skills, measure through narratives, and reading development in African American and Caucasian children. In particular, we were interested in determining whether differences were evident in the use of decontentxtualized language, specifically LLFs, in AA and Caucasian children from the same classroom. The study also explored relations amongst children’s use of LLFs and their scores on a standardized vocabulary measure and reading assessment. The findings revealed that, as predicted, differences were evident between AA and Caucasian children’s use of LLFs in their narratives, consistent with previous research documenting cultural differences in oral narrative traditions.