Abstract
Speaking more than one language has been associated with enhanced cognitive capacities. Here we evaluated whether bilingual individuals have advantages in visual tracking attention. Adult bilingual (n = 35) and monolingual (n = 35) participants were tested in the Multiple Object Tracking task (MOT). In one condition, the MOT was performed by itself establishing the baseline performance of each group, and in the other condition, it was performed while participants counted backward out loud in their mother tongue. At baseline, the average speed tracking threshold of bilinguals was not better than that of the monolinguals. Importantly, for bilinguals, counting backward decreased their threshold by only 15%, but, for monolinguals, it decreased it three times as much. This result suggests that bilingualism confers advantages to visual tracking attention when dual tasking is required, extending the evidence that bilingualism affords cognitive benefits beyond verbal communication.
Highlights
Speaking more than one language has been associated with enhanced cognitive capacities
We compare the performance of bilingual individuals to that of monolinguals on a classic test of visual attention, the multiple object tracking task (MOT), and examine how their performance is affected by distraction
We aim at using a well-established visual attention task, the MOT task, that differs in important ways from previously studied tasks and that has never been used in research on bilingualism
Summary
Speaking more than one language has been associated with enhanced cognitive capacities. For bilinguals, counting backward decreased their threshold by only 15%, but, for monolinguals, it decreased it three times as much This result suggests that bilingualism confers advantages to visual tracking attention when dual tasking is required, extending the evidence that bilingualism affords cognitive benefits beyond verbal communication. Bilinguals are quicker and more accurate at locating a target among distractors and are less influenced by conflicting information, leading Frisen, Latman, Calvo, and Bialystok[17] and Hernández, Costa, and Humphreys[18] to propose that bilinguals have superior visual attention skills when attentional demand is high In these studies, the attention tasks typically involve conflicting cues and rely on cognitive factors like response readiness and decision making.
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