The Guardian recently reported on new research that tested the way German and English monolinguals and German-English bilinguals talked about specific events in both German and English. They found very different results - according, it seems, to the way things are expressed grammatically in each language.
Subjects in this experiment were asked to look at clips involving different actions, and then describe what was going on. German-speakers focussed on both the action (e.g. walking) and the goal (e.g. the supermarket) and would say things like 'The woman is walking to the supermarket'. English-speakers tend to focus on the action alone, e.g. 'The woman is walking' - without the need to express where she was walking to. Researchers believe the difference is due to the grammar: English is much more focussed than German on specifying the precise timing of actions, e.g. 'She is walking' v 'She walks'. It gives less attention to the goal, while German tends to focus equally on both action and goal.
German-English bilinguals were found to behave like German and English monolinguals in German and English respectively, i.e. they changed the way they thought about and described things according to the language they were talking in. Bilingualism really does make you flexible then.
For more detail: 'Think your world view is fixed? Learn another language and you'll think differently' (The Guardian)
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