Abstract
Bilingualism has been put forward as a life experience that, similar to musical training or being physically active, may boost cognitive performance and slow down age-related cognitive decline. In more recent years, bilingualism has come to be acknowledged not as a trait but as a highly individual experience where the context of use strongly modulates any cognitive effect that ensues from it (cf. van den Noort et al., 2019). In addition, modulating factors have been shown to interact in intricate ways (Pot, Keijzer and de Bot, 2018). Adding to the complexity is the fact that control processes linked to bilingualism are bidirectional—just as language control can influence cognitive control, individual differences in cognitive functioning often predict language learning outcomes and control. Indeed, Hartsuiker (2015) posited the need for a better understanding of cognitive control, language control as well as the transfer process between them. In this paper, we aim to shed light on the bidirectional and individual cognitive, social and linguistic factors in relation to bilingualism and second language learning, with a special focus on older adulthood: (1) we first show the intricate clustering of modulating individual factors as deterministic of cognitive outcomes of bilingual experiences at the older end of the lifespan; (2) we then present a meta-study of work in the emergent field of third-age language learning, the results of which are related to lifelong bilingualism; (3) objectives (1) and (2) are then combined to result in a blueprint for future work relating cognitive and social individual differences to bilingual linguistic outcomes and vice versa in the context of third-age language learning.
Highlights
Research towards healthy aging has attested that engaging in cognitively stimulating experiences—such as playing a musical instrument [1,2], being physically active [3] and seemingly simple activities such as engaging in meaningful discussions [4]—may promote brain plasticity.This is supported by neuroscientific research that finds the brain to maintain lifelong plasticity through adjusting to such experiences [5,6]
Through a meta-analysis of studies within this emerging field presented in Section 3, we explore what new light this perspective can shed on our understanding of bilingualism as a cognitively enriching experience
By comparing the scant work that has been done in this domain and relate language constellations, teaching methods and intensity to linguistic and cognitive outcomes, a blueprint can be provided for future work in this domain with its ultimate aim to shed more light on the nature of cognitive and language control as well as the transfer between them in the context of bilingualism as a final constituent
Summary
Research towards healthy aging has attested that engaging in cognitively stimulating experiences—such as playing a musical instrument [1,2], being physically active [3] and seemingly simple activities such as engaging in meaningful discussions [4]—may promote brain plasticity. Sci. 2019, 9, 98 delay the onset of Alzheimer’s disease and dementia by approximately 4.5–5 years across cultures [7,8,9] This finding, is not robust (see the meta-analysis of Mukadam and colleagues [10]) and research targeting bilingualism’s influences on cognitive reserve with older populations in different regions has produced mixed results [11,12,13]. These inconsistent findings do not imply that bilingualism is not among the cognitively enriching experiences that ‘train’ executive functions to result in cognitive reserve in older adulthood. The paper ends with a future outlook of the emerging field of third-age language learning and the insights into cognitive and language control that can ensue from it
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