Bilinguals have more complex EEG brain signals in occipital regions than monolinguals

Abstract

Brain signal complexity increases with development and is associated with better cognitive outcomes in older age. Research has also shown that bilinguals are able to stave off cognitive decline for longer periods of time than monolinguals, but no studies to date have examined whether bilinguals have more complex brain signals than monolinguals. Here we explored the hypothesis that bilingualism leads to greater brain signal complexity by examining multiscale entropy (MSE) in monolingual and bilingual young adults while EEG was recorded during a task-switching paradigm. Results revealed that bilinguals had greater brain signal complexity than monolinguals in occipital regions. Furthermore, bilinguals performed better with increasing occipital brain signal complexity, whereas monolinguals relied on coupling with frontal regions to demonstrate gains in performance. These findings are discussed in terms of how a lifetime of experience with a second language leads to more automatic and efficient processing of stimuli and how these adaptations could contribute to the prevention of cognitive decline in older age.