Individual differences in control of language interference in late bilinguals are mainly related to general executive abilities.

Julia Festman,Thomas F Münte,Antoni Rodriguez-Fornells

doi:10.1186/1744-9081-6-5

Julia Festman, Thomas F Münte + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1186/1744-9081-6-5

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Abstract

BackgroundRecent research based on comparisons between bilinguals and monolinguals postulates that bilingualism enhances cognitive control functions, because the parallel activation of languages necessitates control of interference. In a novel approach we investigated two groups of bilinguals, distinguished by their susceptibility to cross-language interference, asking whether bilinguals with strong language control abilities ("non-switchers") have an advantage in executive functions (inhibition of irrelevant information, problem solving, planning efficiency, generative fluency and self-monitoring) compared to those bilinguals showing weaker language control abilities ("switchers").Methods29 late bilinguals (21 women) were evaluated using various cognitive control neuropsychological tests [e.g., Tower of Hanoi, Ruff Figural Fluency Task, Divided Attention, Go/noGo] tapping executive functions as well as four subtests of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale. The analysis involved t-tests (two independent samples). Non-switchers (n = 16) were distinguished from switchers (n = 13) by their performance observed in a bilingual picture-naming task.ResultsThe non-switcher group demonstrated a better performance on the Tower of Hanoi and Ruff Figural Fluency task, faster reaction time in a Go/noGo and Divided Attention task, and produced significantly fewer errors in the Tower of Hanoi, Go/noGo, and Divided Attention tasks when compared to the switchers. Non-switchers performed significantly better on two verbal subtests of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (Information and Similarity), but not on the Performance subtests (Picture Completion, Block Design).ConclusionsThe present results suggest that bilinguals with stronger language control have indeed a cognitive advantage in the administered tests involving executive functions, in particular inhibition, self-monitoring, problem solving, and generative fluency, and in two of the intelligence tests. What remains unclear is the direction of the relationship between executive functions and language control abilities.

Highlights

Recent research based on comparisons between bilinguals and monolinguals postulates that bilingualism enhances cognitive control functions, because the parallel activation of languages necessitates control of interference
Significant differences between groups are indicated by an asterisk with * = p < .05 and ** = p
Using Ward’s method, participants were grouped into 2 clusters on the basis of these errors, “switchers” (n = 13, 11 women, 10 to 20 errors or interference) and “nonswitchers” (n = 16, 10 women, 0 to 5)

Summary

Introduction

Recent research based on comparisons between bilinguals and monolinguals postulates that bilingualism enhances cognitive control functions, because the parallel activation of languages necessitates control of interference. It has been demonstrated that bilinguals outperform monolinguals on tasks taxing cognitive control functions, such as the Simon task [6], and the attention network task (ANT) [7]. Explanations have attributed this advantage to greater cognitive control of information processing and attention, and more effective use of cognitive functions [4,8,9,10,11,12]. Recent research implies earlier development of executive function in bilingual children (around the age of 3 years) as compared to monolinguals (at approximately 4-5 years of age) [10,15,16,17]

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