Abstract
The purpose of the present study was to replicate and extend our original findings of enhanced neural inhibitory control in bilinguals. We compared English monolinguals to Spanish/English bilinguals on a non-linguistic, auditory Go/NoGo task while recording event-related brain potentials. New to this study was the visual Go/NoGo task, which we included to investigate whether enhanced neural inhibition in bilinguals extends from the auditory to the visual modality. Results confirmed our original findings and revealed greater inhibition in bilinguals compared to monolinguals. As predicted, compared to monolinguals, bilinguals showed increased N2 amplitude during the auditory NoGo trials, which required inhibitory control, but no differences during the Go trials, which required a behavioral response and no inhibition. Interestingly, during the visual Go/NoGo task, event related brain potentials did not distinguish the two groups, and behavioral responses were similar between the groups regardless of task modality. Thus, only auditory trials that required inhibitory control revealed between-group differences indicative of greater neural inhibition in bilinguals. These results show that experience-dependent neural changes associated with bilingualism are specific to the auditory modality and that the N2 event-related brain potential is a sensitive marker of this plasticity.
Highlights
Exciting new brain imaging studies reveal that the experience of being bilingual, and constantly managing two languages, enhances brain structures and function and may even slow down or protect against brain deterioration associated with aging
Results of our study revealed that compared to monolinguals, bilinguals showed enhanced N2 amplitude on tasks that required inhibitory control (NoGo task), but performance was similar between the groups on tasks that did not require inhibition (Go task).second language proficiency scores were correlated with NoGo N2 amplitude, such that higher second language proficiency was associated with greater inhibition
Level of significance was set at α < 0.05, and two-tailed probabilities are reported unless otherwise specified
Summary
Exciting new brain imaging studies reveal that the experience of being bilingual, and constantly managing two languages, enhances brain structures and function and may even slow down or protect against brain deterioration associated with aging. The Oral Vocabulary subtest is one of three subtests that make up this standardized instrument used to assess English language proficiency and overall verbal ability in non-native English speakers. This test is administered in English to quantify English language proficiency. We administered the English version of the Oral Vocabulary subtest (synonyms and antonyms) to all participants and the Spanish version to all bilinguals to quantify English language proficiency in all participants and Spanish language proficiency in bilinguals
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